


Ashes of Eden

by WhisperingWolf



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Trigger Warnings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 21:29:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 38,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10705482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhisperingWolf/pseuds/WhisperingWolf
Summary: Unable to accept the guilt of the pain she had caused her son, she turned her rage on the one person she believed had caused it all. Charlotte may have promised Lucifer that she wouldn't directly harm Chloe, but she never said anything about not influencing someone else to go after the detective. If she couldn't kill the woman with her own two hands, just maybe she could make Chloe do it herself.Set post'A Good Day to Die'. (Written during the Spring break before the airing of'Candy Morningstar') While some scenes may seem similar to scenes in, or after,Candy Morningstar, this story is not meant to follow the TV’s aired storyline, and is of my own creation.





	1. Prologue "Lost It All"

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: For those of you that do not like reading stories with OCs (Original Characters), or side stories, and want the story to be all about Lucifer and Chloe only, this story is not for you. You have been warned.

AN: Lucifer and all recognizable characters belong to Jerry Bruckheimer and FOX television. Set post 'A _Good Day to Die_ '. (Written during the Spring break before the airing of ' _Candy Morningstar_ ') While some scenes may seem similar to scenes in, or after, _Candy Morningstar_ , this story is not meant to follow the TV’s aired storyline, and is of my own creation.

Summary: Unable to accept the guilt of the pain she had caused her son, she turned her rage on the one person she believed had caused it all. Charlotte may have promised Lucifer that she wouldn't directly harm Chloe, but she never said anything about not influencing someone else to go after the detective. If she couldn't kill the woman with her own two hands, just maybe she could make Chloe do it herself.

 

 

**Ashes of Eden**

 

Prologue

**_“Lost It All”_ **

by WhisperingWolf

 

 

 

Lucifer nodded his thanks to Amenadiel, watching as his brother left the hospital room, and closed the door a moment later. He sighed as he turned back to look at Chloe. She was still unconscious, no one had told him if she’d woken since he had returned from Hell with the formula, only that she had been asking for him before. He stepped over to the area between the window and the bed, pulling a chair close to her bedside and angling it to see her face before he sat down.

She looked tiny to him, fragile, and he didn’t quite know how to handle that. Their first case together, she had been shot. But even then, when she had been lying in the hospital bed wrapped in bandages, she hadn’t looked fragile to him. Not then. But she looked so damn fragile now. He looked down at his hands as he crossed his legs, the tip of his tongue slipping out to wet his bottom lip. He took in a shaking breath as he tried to force back the storm of his emotions.

This time was so much different than her shooting had been. He closed his eyes as he lifted his head, his brow furrowing as he opened his eyes to look at Chloe. Back then, he had been closed off from his emotions. He hadn’t cared what anyone thought of him, but then she had come along. Detective Chloe Decker never had believed his claims that he was the Devil. She hadn’t slept with him and tossed him aside. He tipped his head as his brows rose and fell in a shrug. She hadn’t slept with him at all, not for his lack of trying.

Maybe that was for the best, he thought as he sighed. The emotions storming through him now were powerful enough in their own right, had they slept together, he was certain they would be that much stronger. He scoffed at himself as he shook his head and looked down at his hands folded on his knee. Chloe had gotten under his skin, and he had been blind to it until it had been too late. He closed his eyes as he thought back on their time together, his lips parting as he released a shaking sigh.

Father Frank Lawrence, he thought as his lips turned up in a bittersweet smile. That had been the first moment, the turning point between them. That was the first time he had ever felt the edges of this new emotion. He hadn’t liked it then, and he certainly didn’t like it now. He had thought it was anger, but it wasn’t. Anger was easier than this. Anger, he knew how to handle, but this – this aching pain that left him hollow and cold. It made him want to lash out at everyone, even while it left him unable to breathe.

He had felt broken the night Father Frank had died, blaming his own father for the death of the man. After what he had learned recently, he couldn’t help wondering if it hadn’t all been planned. A man who’d had a checkered past that had become a priest. A man with a love of the piano and a gift for rock and roll. The connection had been instant, once they had sat down at a piano together, that was. But then, to have him ripped away only _minutes_ later? He closed his eyes as he clenched his jaw.

He looked up at Chloe, watching her sleep as he remembered the night she had come to him. Blues, jazz, rock and roll, even songs that were considered heavy metal that he was able to create piano versions for, that was what he chose to play. But for Chloe, he had found himself playing _Heart and Soul_ , and why? Because it made her smile. He had never just watched her smile, he thought as he stared at her, he _felt_ her smiles – each and every one of them.

She had soothed his pain, healing him and he had found himself steadied in her presence. He still remembered the look in her eyes when the song had come to an end and she had turned her gaze up to meet his. Whether he wanted to talk, or play something else on the piano, or simply sit in silence, it didn’t matter. She hadn’t come to him because she wanted anything from him at all. She had come to him because she had understood his aching need to not be alone.

Everything that had happened since that night had only brought them closer. And then, three days ago on the beach, he had finally told her why he wouldn’t pursue a sexual relationship with her anymore. He had bared himself to her, laying out the reasons that she deserved better than him, and instead of agreeing with him, she had kissed him. Even now, his lips still tingled with the feel of her kiss, the taste of her mouth. He could still feel the burn of her soul wrapping around his, pulling him closer, welcoming him in. He had expected the arousal that accompanied her kiss, but what he hadn’t expected was how deeply the embrace had shaken him.

His world had become richer, more vibrant. He would’ve done anything she asked, taken it slower, made love to her for hours. Before he could though, his mother had revealed the truth of Chloe’s existence to him. She wasn’t meant to be, his father had put her in his path, and the deep soul-aching pain that accompanied that truth made him question everything. The anger had come then, betrayal twining around it with the strength of a tornado. He had wanted to yell at her, to demand - 

Lucifer took in a deep breath as he turned his eyes up to the screen of the heart monitor watching over her. He didn’t know what he wanted, only that he was so deeply hurt he hadn’t been able to think straight. But when he had confronted her, his world had been turned on its ear again. His sense of betrayal had turned into a fear so deep it had left him cold and shaken to his core. To discover she had been poisoned, to know there was no cure, no hope. The very real possibility that she would be gone from him had made him turn on his brother, only to realize that her death hadn’t been part of his father’s plan, and that Chloe had no knowledge of what she was. A miracle sent to destroy him.

His eyes flicked up to the heart monitor when he heard the tempo increase, only to turn down to her face when he heard her whimper in her sleep. His brows furrowed as he watched her, realizing that she wasn’t waking so much as she was having a rather unpleasant dream. He reached out to her, placing his hand on her arm as he spoke to her softly. He tipped his head in curiosity as he watched her calm to the sound of his voice, the touch of his hand. She sighed deeply a moment later, and he listened as the heart monitor slowed down once more.

He looked down at the feel of her fingers wrapping around his, and smiled sadly at the sight of her holding his hand. Smoothing the pad of his thumb across her knuckles, he promised her he wouldn’t leave until she woke, and slipped his fingers from her grasp. He wasn’t angry anymore, he thought as he watched her sleep. All he felt now was broken. He would give anything – absolutely _anything_ – to know that what they had was real, but he couldn’t trust it. His father had put her here, and in doing so, he had very likely been tugging on the strings of her emotions. Turning her heart into some sick and twisted marionette, and Chloe had no idea.

As much as he couldn’t bear the thought that his father was behind all of this, the very real possibility that her emotions weren’t her own made it worse. How could he stay here knowing that she wasn’t free to feel what she wanted to feel instead of what his father _made_ her feel? He had been the pawn between his parents from the very moment he had come into existence, he couldn’t let her suffer the same. Taking in a deep breath, he licked his lips and closed his eyes. All of this, every emotion, every memory, every part of this was made worse by the knowledge that his mother hadn’t sought him out because she wanted to get to know him. No, she had come to find him, did everything to forge a bond with him, for the sole purpose of manipulating him.

His guilt over Uriel’s death returned in the moment that his mother had revealed that particular truth to him. He may have killed Uriel to protect Chloe, but he couldn’t help the thought that his wayward brother had been right all along. Their mother was a danger to them all, and had he seen her for what she was in the beginning, then maybe – just _maybe_ – his brother would still be alive. And maybe . . . Maybe he and Chloe wouldn’t have grown closer. And maybe he never would have learned the truth of Chloe’s origins.

He released a harsh sigh as he shook his head. He sought truth, he _told_ the truth, but Linda had been right. The only person he was lying to was himself. Ignorance would never have been better. Ignorance would only have made his pain that much worse in the end. He had already made the decision to leave Los Angeles before he had come to sit beside her, but he realized now that it wasn’t just because of the pain and betrayal he felt at all his mother and father had done to him. It was because he owed Chloe at least that much. She deserved a good life, a happy life, and she would never get that with him in the picture.

Lucifer blinked as he pushed back his emotions, and looked up at Chloe’s face when the heart monitor began picking up rhythm. He watched as she breathed in deeply, her cheeks gaining a healthier color as she rose to consciousness. Her lashes fluttered as her eyes opened slowly, and he grinned in bittersweet amusement when he heard the whispered half-moan half-sigh as she turned her head. Her blue eyes met his, and he felt himself frozen under her stare, only to wish he could ignore all that he knew and felt when she smiled at him.

“Well, look who’s back,” he teased her, and returned her smile when she placed her hand on top of his. “You didn’t die after all, that makes one of us.”

“I heard you saved me,” she said softly. He smiled sadly as he felt the warmth of her soul reach out to him.

“As much as I’d like to take all the credit,” he told her with a shy smile and a teasing arch of his brow. “This one was a team effort.”

“You know, this whole poisoning thing has really put a pause in everything that’s been going on with you and I. So, should we just pick up where we left off?” she asked him, and he saw the hope in her eyes that made the ache in his chest return.

“I think, right now, detective,” he said as he stood from his chair. “You just need to focus on getting better.”

She nodded to him, catching his hand, and he looked down to meet her gaze. “Would you have someone bring Trixie in?” she asked, and he smiled sadly.

“Yes,” he agreed easily. “Yes, of course.”

“And we’ll talk . . . We’ll talk later, yeah?” she asked him.

He made a motion that was almost a nod, but not quite. He couldn’t speak. If he did, he’d have to tell her the truth, and he knew she wouldn’t understand. She’d either believe he was running from his emotions, or that there was something wrong with her. He didn’t think he’d be able to handle it if she believed there was something wrong with her. Even now, after all he had learned, she was still too important to him.

He left her hospital room a few seconds later, and released a heavy sigh when he stepped into the hall. Mazikeen was sitting outside the door with Trixie in her lap, both wrapped around each other. Dan had gone back to the precinct, having been called in on another case that wouldn’t wait, and he nodded to the door of Chloe’s hospital room when her daughter looked up at him. For the first time that he could remember, Trixie didn’t run to hug him. Instead, she slipped off of Mazikeen’s lap and ran for the door.

Lucifer tucked his hands in his pants pockets as he made his way through the halls and left the hospital. The late afternoon sun was blinding as he stepped outside, and just when he believed himself to be free, he heard her voice. The anger he felt surged bright and furious inside of him, only to be gone a moment later as the darkness of his pain returned. In that moment, he found himself wishing that she could feel even a tenth of the agony he felt. Maybe then she would understand what she had done.

“How is the detective?” Charlotte asked.

“She’ll be fine,” he said as he continued walking, wanting nothing to do with her.

“And?” she said, and he heard the sound her steps quickening as she stopped him with her hand on his arm. “What about the two of you?” she asked as she moved to stand in front of him, forcing him to give her his undivided attention.

He scoffed as he looked at her, anger and pained amusement warring for dominance inside of him. “Well, it was never real, was it?” he asked of her, hating her for all she had done.

“Lucifer, I am so sorry,” she told him, and he couldn’t silence the thought that her apology was yet another manipulation.

“Father brought her into existence just to put her in my path,” he said, wishing he could be angry at Chloe, but knowing he couldn’t.

None of the blame laid with her, it was all shared between his parents. He realized then that he had never been anything more to them than a pawn. To his father, he had been the one He could cast blame on, the one He could vilify, just so that He didn’t have to take any of the blame for the bad things that happened. Even Ella hadn’t thought what he did was bad enough to deserve being cast out.

_‘What did he really do that was so bad? Rebel against his dad, and ask a naked lady if she wanted an apple?’_

But to his mother, he thought as he stared at her. To her, he was nothing. Just a tool to be used in her war against his father. Maybe she should have let his father destroy him, he thought. At least then he wouldn’t have had to deal with the lies, the manipulations. All he’d ever wanted was to be accepted, and he’d found that with humanity. He’d found so much more with Chloe, only for all of it to be yet another of his father’s lies.

“Yes,” Charlotte said, and he felt his anger spark hot and fast as he stared at her.

“The whole thing’s been a sham, Mum,” he told her, wishing he was back in Hell just so that he could torture someone. “A long con,” he said with a wince of hatred for his parents. “And I fell for it.”

“Lucifer, you can’t blame yourself,” she said, and he wondered how it was possible for her to be so blind. “This is all His doing. And He should be punished for it,” she told him, and he knew then that she was still playing him.

“Oh, make no mistake, I plan on that,” he told her. “I mean how can I trust anything – _anyone_ – now that I know He might be behind it all?”

“Well, you can trust me,” she said, and he felt his hatred for her burn inside of him.

“Can I, _Mum?_ ” he challenged her. “You’re as bad as He is, worse maybe. At least He doesn’t pretend to love me,” he said, and walked past her, only to be stopped when she caught his arm.

“Lucifer!” she called to him as she stopped him. “I _do_ love you,” she declared, and he scoffed, laughing at the notion. “I went back to Hell _for you_. I helped save the detective _for you_. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

“It’s too little, too late, Mother,” he told her. “You set out to break my heart. Well . . . mission accomplished,” he told her, letting her see the true depth of his pain.

“Lucifer – ”

“No!” he denied her, stopping her when she reached out to touch him. “No more manipulations. This feud that you have going with Father, I _refuse_ to be caught in the middle any longer. I am _tired_ of being a pawn. So, no more. I’m done.”

She called out to him when he turned away, but he didn’t turn back. He couldn’t look at her anymore, couldn’t stand to be in the same space as her, let alone the same city. He had to get away. All of this, every part of it, it had all just been too much. He needed to return home to gather his things, and then he would leave.

 

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

 

Mazikeen looked up from the cup of coffee in her hands when she heard the door open, and met Dan’s gaze as he stepped out of Chloe’s hospital room. Trixie was asleep on his shoulder, the child worn out from the stresses of the day, and Mazikeen found herself jealous of her for just a moment. The ability to simply fall asleep and have the innocence of blind trust that told her she would be taken care of. If only her life were that simple, the demon thought as she stood from her seat.

“They’re keeping Chloe overnight,” Dan told her, keeping his voice low as he rubbed his daughter’s back. “I’m taking Trixie home with me. The doctor said Chloe will need to be on reduced activity for a while.”

“Do you have what she needs?” Mazikeen asked with a frown as she nodded to the sleeping child.

“No,” Dan said with a sigh. “I’ll need to pick up her school stuff, and clothes for her.”

Mazikeen nodded quietly, and turned as she led the way down the hall to the elevators. Stepping inside the metal carriage, she put her arm across the doors to keep them open and waited for Dan to step inside. Closing her eyes as she lifted her brows high on her forehead, she blinked quickly before reaching out to press the button that would take them to the ground floor. She frowned as she turned her attention on Dan, able to feel the heat of the man’s silent stare.

“What?” she asked, keeping her voice low.

“With everything that’s happened, I didn’t even think to ask how you were doing,” he said, and Mazikeen looked away as she shook her head. “You live with Chloe, and as much as you may like to show a rough exterior, I know none of this was easy on you.”

Mazikeen sighed when she realized Dan wouldn’t let the subject drop, and shook her head before she met his gaze.

“I don’t know how I’m doing,” she told him honestly.

Mazikeen released a heavy sigh when Dan reached out to pull the emergency stop button. The bell rang, the shrill echo sounding around them before falling silent, but Trixie never stirred. That child could sleep through anything, she thought with a sigh, and turned to face the man next to her. She waited for him to speak as she watched him, her brows drawing together, and found herself struck speechless by the honest concern in his expression.

She was a demon, Mazikeen thought. She was the one who fought for and looked out for Lucifer, for Linda, and Chloe, and Trixie, and now Ella, too. She was the warrior, but here was Dan, and he was worried _for her_. She didn’t know how to accept his attention, and looked down as she nodded to herself, before looking up to meet his gaze.

“Chloe almost died,” she said simply. “I didn’t even know she was . . . until Lucifer told me his plan to save her.” She shook her head as she looked at the corner of the elevator behind him. “What Lucifer did, what I helped him do,” she said as she met his gaze once more, “I almost lost him, too.”

Dan nodded slowly. “You ever need anyone to talk to,” he offered as he reached forward to release the emergency stop on the elevator.

Mazikeen released a breath of amusement. “Thanks,” she said, and nodded before shaking her head. “But there’s a lot you wouldn’t understand. And as stupid as it might sound to you, I hope you never have to understand it.”

 

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

The sharp tone of the elevator’s bell rang as the metal carriage came to a stop, and Lucifer stood waiting for the doors to open. He bowed his head as he tucked his hands into his pants pocket, his eyes turning up when the doors slid open. This place had been his home for the past six years. He had been happy enough here, far more content than he had ever been in Heaven or Hell. There had been a moment not that long ago when he had almost lost this place. He laughed sadly as he stepped out into the penthouse. It had been Chloe who’d saved his home, doing everything with no price or expectation involved.

That was crux of it all, wasn’t it, he thought as he moved slowly to stand beside his piano. In the past year, his world had become about Chloe. From the first moment she stepped into LUX and spoke his name, he had been lost. The sight of her, the way her eyes watched him, the way the tone of her voice was as vibrant as she was, even her smell, he thought and shook his head as he closed his eyes. But none of it had been real. His father had designed her, put her in his path, and why? Because if there was one thing Lucifer knew better than anyone else, it was that he was his father’s favorite son for only one reason. His very existence gave his father someone to hate.

Lucifer sighed as he sat down at his piano. He would leave soon enough, but he couldn’t leave without one more song. At every point in his life here on earth that he had been ready to give it all in, his piano had brought him comfort. He needed that now, even if he was so numb that he could barely breathe. Lifting his hands to rest on the keys, he found that he couldn’t feel them, and pressed down only to wince at the unpleasant minor chord that resulted. He closed his eyes as the music came from him, the notes seeming to play themselves, his lips falling open as he took in air to sing.

“I ruled the world,” he sang, his voice soft and rough. “With these hands, I shook the heavens to the ground. I laid the gods to rest.”

Every moment had led him here, to this one moment of heartache so deep he was left feeling hollowed and frozen. The time he had spent in Heaven with his family, the years of cosmic creation when he had helped light the stars, only to realize the jealousy of his siblings. He hadn’t understood it then, why they were jealous. No one had told him that he was his father’s favorite, all he knew was that his wings had been pure and white, so much so that his siblings had touched them every chance they’d gotten.

“I held the key to the kingdom. Lions guarding castle walls. Hail the king of death,” his voice grew rougher, adding a deeper timbre to the notes as he sang.

He missed that connection, the stroking of his wings. But those days were long past and ground into dust. As a child, he had been the one to question everything. His mother had called it curiosity. His siblings had called it something else. But his father had been the one to call it rebellion. All he had ever wanted, as a child, was to understand his father. He wanted to know why God had created the earth, and other planets like it. Why had he created the humans, these creatures that looked like flightless angels.

These humans were flawed and careless. God had imbued them with free will, but they were blind sheep all the same. His father had insisted they could think for themselves, that in the end they would do what was right, but he hadn’t believed the same. Samael, the he that was before, had been brazen enough to challenge his father. He had asked him so many questions, and in the end, when the answers hadn’t been enough for him, he had gone to the humans to prove his father’s claims wrong.

Adam and Eve were supposed to be examples of freedom, but they knew nothing. He had truly believed that his father couldn’t claim these beings to be perfectly free and in command of themselves if they didn’t know anything at all. And so, he had offered the apple to Eve. He hadn’t forced her to take it, he hadn’t commanded her to eat the fruit, all he had done was ask her a question. Did she want the knowledge God had kept from her? It had been the beginning of the end.

“Then I lost it all,” he sang, his voice becoming stronger as his eyes stung with tears he refused the acknowledge. “Dead and broken, my back’s against the wall.”

He closed his eyes tightly, his face a mask of pain as the memory of being cast into Hell came into sharp focus inside his mind. The heat of Hell’s fire, the searing pain as his skin was burned and charred. The way he had screamed himself hoarse as his wings felt as though they were being torn from his body. Was it pride on his father’s part that had left his wings untouched by the fire? His feathers should have been charred, lost, but instead his wings had remained in perfect condition, while the rest of him had been melted and burned, charred and disfigured.

“Cut me open, I’m,” his voice broke around the words as he took in a breath to sing. “Just trying to breathe. Just trying to figure it out.”

His father had wanted someone weaker than him. He closed his eyes as he bowed his head, his mother’s words chasing themselves around inside his memory. _‘Your father didn’t send you to Hell. I did. He wanted to destroy you.’_ Hell had been anything but empty when he had gotten there. He hadn’t been alone, and at first, the demons had taken great pleasure in torturing him. They had cut into his healing scars with their claws, beaten him until he had been broken.

His anger had risen fast and furious, his rage leading him to dominate the demons and lost souls. Mazikeen had stepped out of the shadows, neither wanting to tear into him, nor to comfort him. She had watched him for centuries, protecting him from the other demons. He hadn’t been certain what to make of her, and she hadn’t known what to make of him, and then he had learned that she’d been created to protect him. His father had cast him down to rule Hell, and in response Hell, as an entity of its own, had created Mazikeen.

“Because I built these walls,” the words fell from him, his tone heavy with grief. “To watch them crumbling down. I said, then I lost it all. Who can save me now?”

After all the centuries of pain, the endless torment. All the time spent learning that emotion was weakness and love would only get him killed, he had escaped Hell. He had run away, and why? Because he was so far beyond done with Hell, that all he’d wanted was a chance to live. A chance to be free.

“I stood above, another war. Another jewel above the crown,” he sang, paying no attention to the dampness of his eyes, or the hitch in his voice. “I was the fear of men.”

He had come to earth, living in the rush of sex and drugs. He had shown himself to the humans who’d sought to do him harm, or to harm those he called friend. The drug dealer who’d blackened the eye of one of his waitresses, and all because she’d been brave enough to help her friend get clean. The woman who had tried to show her affection for his bartender by putting his ex-lover in the hospital by way of a baseball bat. Each time, he had watched the worst of humanity fall apart in front of him at just the barest glimpse of his true face. His burned, disfigured flesh, and glowing red eyes.

“But I was blind,” he sang, his voice softening. “I couldn’t see the world there right in front of me. But now I can.”

He had met Chloe, and in the blink of an eye, everything had changed. From one moment to the next, he had found himself drawn to her. He had told himself it was because she had a dangerous job, and that he enjoyed teasing her. Both were true among themselves, but neither were _his_ truth. His truth was so much richer, dizzying and frightening. Chloe made him _feel_. She didn’t simply arouse him, she made him feel all of the emotions he had ever closed himself off to, and as much as he loved her for it now, it had terrified him then. Maybe, it still did.

“Ye-e-e-e- _ah_ ,” his voice exploded with the fullness of the song as his hands came down on the keys of the piano with power and fury, the walls bringing the song back to him in waves and roars. “Because I lost it all.”

Chloe Decker had been his savior, and in the end, his destroyer. The longer time went on, the deeper he fell, until the faces of the women he slept with became a sea of hers. He had tried to get her out of his head, but she wouldn’t leave him. If only she would have torn into him, somehow sat in judgement of him for his sexual adventures, but she never had. Maybe it would be easier now, if she had. Maybe he wouldn’t have fallen in love with her.

“Dead and broken, my back’s against the wall.” He blinked, a single tear slipping down his cheek, thought he ignored it as he took in a deep breath, his voice wavering. “Cut me open . . . I’m just trying to breathe, just trying to figure it out. Because I built these walls,” he sang, his voice cracking as the pain he had denied himself rushed forth in a maddening storm. “To watch them crumbling down. I said, then I lost it all . . . Who can save me now?”

Lucifer’s voice cut off with a sharp bark of a sob, the song falling into silence around him. He clenched his jaw as he slammed his hands down on the keys in anger, the discordant sound reverberating through the penthouse. He couldn’t do this anymore. He couldn’t sit in this place and be surrounded by the memories of _her._ He would _give_ anything, _do anything_ just to be given the promise that the emotions Chloe felt for him were real. But he knew they weren’t. Chloe was as much of a pawn as he was, and he couldn’t bear to see her hurt because of it.

He pulled the cover down over the piano keys, and closed his eyes as he stood from the instrument. Pushing the bench in beneath the piano, he reached for the folded white sheet lying on top of the polished wood and flipped it out. The white cloth fluttered in the air before settling gracefully on top of the instrument, and he turned to look around one last time at the space in front of him. This had been the only true home he’d ever know, and now it was no more.

“Maybe I am a coward, Chloe,” he said as he looked around at the expanse of furniture and things covered in white sheets. “But I can’t say goodbye to you. I don’t think I’d survive it,” he admitted, and turned toward the bar.

Stepping around behind the bar, he lifted his bag from the floor, and scanned his eyes across the living space one last time. Moving to stand next to the piano, he placed his hand on top of the cloth covered instrument and smiled sadly.

“Goodbye, my friend.”

Turning to leave, he stopped and turned back with a frown, swearing he could hear Father Frank’s voice in the room around him. Shaking his head at himself, he moved to the elevator, and reached out to press the button. He turned around as he stepped into the elevator, his brow furrowing deeply as the memory of holding the dying priest flashed before his eyes.

_“At first, I didn’t understand why God put you in my path,” Frank said, gasping for air, as he’d looked up at him. “But then it hit me. Maybe he put me in yours.”_

_“I highly doubt it, he gave up on me a long time ago,” he denied the man, fighting to keep the priest alive even as he’d felt the warm wetness of Frank’s blood soaking through his Armani jacket._

_“You’re wrong, Lucifer. Remember, your father has-a has a plan,” Father Frank had whispered, his breaths coming in stunted gasps._

_“My father,” he had said with some confusion, unable to believe the priest knew the truth of who he was. “You . . .you know?” he had asked, only to look down and find the man dead._

“Why them?” Lucifer whispered as he shook his head. “Why make me feel so deeply for them, only to rip them away? Do you truly hate me so much?” he asked as the elevator doors closed around him.

He closed his eyes as he rode down to the club, and took in a deep steadying breath as the doors opened. They were already here, his staff, dutifully setting up the club in preparation for it to open in a few hours. He released a heavy sigh as he stepped up the bar and watched as Patrick stopped to meet his gaze.

“Yeah,” Patrick said, before Lucifer could say anything, his brows drawing together in a curious frown when the man nodded. “I kind of figured. Call it a gut feeling.”

“Keep her running,” he said in reference to the club.

“You got it, boss,” the part-time manager said with a slow nod. “Will you be reachable?”

“No. Maze can handle whatever you need. I don’t know when I’ll be back,” he said, and watched as Patrick nodded.

“Don’t worry, Lucifer,” he said with a bittersweet grin. “I’ll watch over them for you.”

No explanation was needed, Lucifer thought as he turned away and walked to the door that led into the alley. He knew Patrick was talking about Chloe, Ella, and Linda. The bartender had joked more than a few times that women had become his pride. Like a male lion on the savannah, three of the strongest women he’d met had flocked to him. They circled around him, supported and challenged him, and while only one of them had taken part in his carnal activities, all of them had chosen to stand by his side.

He would miss their teasing and jesting, even the awkward hugs from Ella. He imagined that she was what Trixie would be like when the girl was grown. All the strength and fire of her mother, paired with the open heart and easy love of Ella. It wasn’t until he was sitting behind the wheel of his car that he realized he would miss that small human, and he sighed as he laughed at himself. Turning the key in the ignition, the car came to life, his stereo repeating his goodbye back to him with the song that played on the radio.

“ _I said, then I lost it all. Who will save me now?_ ”

 

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

  


It was nearing midnight when Mazikeen slipped into Chloe’s hospital room with a bag of clothes and necessities for the woman. She still wasn’t sure exactly how she had become so close with the detective, but had found herself shaken hours before when the possibility of losing both Chloe and Lucifer in one go had been all too real. Stepping toward the bed, she set the bag down on the floor, and moved to sit in the chair by the bed. Chloe had looked better before a few hours ago, Mazikeen thought as she studied her sleeping friend, but now she looked pale and worn.

Turning her head back toward the door when she heard it open, she watched as a young nurse walked into the room. She nodded to Mazikeen in greeting, and Mazikeen returned the gesture as she watched the woman check Chloe’s vitals. Narrowing her eyes when the nurse pursed her lips, Mazikeen frowned and asked her quietly what was wrong.

“It’s the after effects of the poisoning and the antidote,” the nurse told her. “It’s hitting Miss Decker harder than hit the other survivors, probably because of how close she came to the point of no return.”

“What do you mean?” Mazikeen asked, and met the woman’s gaze when she looked up from the chart in her hands.

“Nausea, vomiting, headaches, muscle aches, and vertigo,” she answered with an empathetic sigh. “For the other survivors, it was mild. For her . . . “

“But she was fine before,” Mazikeen argued with a frown of confusion.

“It takes about six to ten hours for the after effects to hit. It’s basically a result of her system detoxing from it all. She’ll be fine in a few days – a week – give or take, but we’re keeping a close eye on her,” she said, and leveled Mazikeen with an almost disapproving look. “Normally, I would have to kick you out. You’re here well past visiting hours, but an extra pair of eyes on her wouldn’t be a bad thing.” Her expression softened when Mazikeen shook her head with confusion. “She had another seizure a few hours ago. It may simply have been aftershocks, but we can’t be certain.”

Mazikeen snorted. “So, her assurances that she was leaving here in the morning?” she asked, and watched the nurse nod.

“Early afternoon at the best,” she said. “We’ve got a series of tests to run before we declare her fit enough to leave. And when she does go home, she needs at least two weeks of rest before she can go back on duty. Her body’s gone through Hell these past twenty-four hours, and she’s still got a lot of recovery ahead of her.”

“How close was she?” Mazikeen asked, and the nurse sighed.

“Another thirty minutes, and there would have been no saving her,” the nurse told her. “I’ve got to get back to rounds. Anyone tries to give you trouble, just tell them Jocelyn said you were good.”

Mazikeen nodded once, and turned her attention back to Chloe as the woman left the room, pulling the door closed behind her. She wondered if Lucifer knew just how close he’d cut it with getting the cure, or how close he had come to losing Chloe for good. Reaching into her jacket pocket, she withdrew her cellphone, and frowned at the screen. There were no new messages from Lucifer, nothing at all since the early afternoon, and she sighed.

In a way, it didn’t surprise her that he wasn’t talking to her right now. Less than thirty hours ago, he had found out the truth of Chloe’s origins, only to find out minutes after that the detective had been poisoned. With everything that had happened, the Devil deserved a little downtime. They all did. Mazikeen turned her head back to look at the door when it opened, and arched her brow curiously when Amenadiel entered the room.

“How is she?” he asked in a low voice as he shut the door.

“Nurse said she had another seizure,” she told him. “Apparently, there are some unpleasant after effects she has to deal with.”

“I heard,” Amenadiel said, and looked back at the door. “Ran into one of the kids that was poisoned. He said Lucifer saved him. Walked right through poison gas like it was nothing.”

Mazikeen nodded quietly as she turned her attention back to Chloe. “A year ago,” she said softly, her voice tinged with confusion. “I wouldn’t have cared if Chloe died, or not. But now?”

Amenadiel nodded as he moved to stand beside her, and placed his hand on her shoulder. “You’re changing, Maze,” he told her. “We all are.”

“I’m a demon,” she countered quietly. “I don’t have a soul.”

“That doesn’t mean you don’t have a heart,” he mused. “The two are not mutually exclusive.”

“Lucifer?” Chloe called out as she stirred.

“Shh,” Amenadiel soothed her as he moved closer to take the woman’s hand.

“Lucifer?” she called again, her eyes still closed.

“It’s alright, Chloe,” he calmed her. “It’s Amenadiel,” he told her when she called out for Lucifer a third time.

“’Mena . . . “ her voice trailed off, his name only half formed as she slipped back into sleep.

“Part of me wanted to be resentful of her,” he confessed quietly, and looked down at his hand, Chloe’s fingers curled loosely around his. “I was angry at Father when I realized her origins,” he said, and smoothed the pad of his thumb over Chloe’s knuckles. “In some manner, I was jealous of Lucifer because in a way, God created Chloe for him. But . . . I never could be upset with Chloe.”

“You blame your father for that?” Mazikeen asked, and met Amenadiel’s gaze when he looked back at her over his shoulder.

“No,” he said with a thoughtful pout. “In all of this, Chloe’s innocent. She has no idea that she was created by Father. She doesn’t know that she singlehandedly holds the power to destroy Lucifer. And she doesn’t know that Lucifer gave her that power.”

“What are you talking about?” Mazikeen asked him, as she looked between the fallen angel and the woman sleeping in the bed.

“Everything both you and Luci told me, Maze,” Amenadiel told her. “He protected her from bullets when they first met. If Father had meant for her to have the power to destroy Lucifer, then he would have died with her in that music studio. She didn’t make him vulnerable for weeks. Not until . . .”

“Not until he became infatuated with her,” Mazikeen finished with a heavy sigh.

“Exactly,” he said, and stepped back to stand beside Mazikeen’s chair. “Luci fell in love with her, he just never realized it.”

“Until yesterday,” Mazikeen told him, and shook her head. “You should have seen him. He was so happy, practically glowing like some love struck human. And then your mother threw the knowledge of Chloe’s existence in his face. I watched him break.”

“And then she was poisoned,” Amenadiel finished with a sigh.

“What?” Mazikeen asked as she studied Amenadiel’s expression, his narrowed eyes and furrowed brow.

“Uriel,” Amenadiel said simply. “He promised to kill Chloe and Mother. What if this _was_ his plan?” he asked, and Mazikeen frowned.

“Lucifer killed him before he could press the key,” she denied, as she shook her head. “Uriel never started the pattern.”

“If there’s one thing I know – _knew_ ,” he corrected himself, “about Uriel, it’s that he would give you a false start. When we were young, he would tell us that a bird, or a plant, or a breeze was the start of one of his patterns, when the true start was something else entirely.”

“You’re saying Uriel lied?” Mazikeen said with mock offense.

“With the best of them,” Amenadiel said, his brow arched in annoyed amusement. “Uriel learned his gift for patterns from Mom,” he told her. “But once he got good enough at them, he began to see her as a rival. The wars, the plagues, the natural disasters, all that happened before Mom was locked up in Hell,” he said, and met Mazikeen’s gaze. “Those were little more than sparring matches between them. Mom was always better, but Uriel . . . He knew how to create a false pattern to distract you from what was really happening.”

“You mean?”

“I’m fairly certain Chloe was supposed to die,” he told her. “And if she had, I have no doubt that Lucifer would have turned on Mom.”

“He did – ”

“No, Maze,” he interrupted her. “I mean, Lucifer would have killed Mom with Azrael’s blade. How many times has Mom already tried to kill Chloe?” he reminded her. “Luci would have seen Chloe’s death as something Mom orchestrated.” Their attention turned to Chloe when she moaned, her eyes fluttering without opening. “Come on,” he said, and nodded toward the door. “We should let her sleep.”

 

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

  


“Detective - Chloe,” the nurse called to her in a cautioning and empathetic tone. “I know you want to get out of here, and I’m pretty sure I know why. That man who brought you in, I’ve seen him here with you before. He’s always by your side, and I can only imagine how much you must want to get back to him,” she said, and Chloe turned to meet her gaze as she sat down on the side of the hospital bed to pull on her boots. “But I must warn you, there are _a lot_ of unknowns here.”

“I’m fine,” Chloe told her with a shake of her head. “I _feel_ fine. Last night was just -” Chloe paused as she sighed. “I don’t know. An anomaly.”

“Not an anomaly,” the nurse countered. “The other two survivors of this poisoning experienced nausea, headaches, vertigo, exhaustion, even insomnia. The symptoms didn’t hit until ten to twelve hours _after_ the antidote had been administered. But those patients didn’t come _nearly_ as close to the point of no return as you did. Their symptoms were mild, yours may be worse. And they will abate for a time, but they will also come back stronger.”

“You brought me the discharge papers,” Chloe reminded her with an exasperated sigh.

“Yes, but you’re also leaving against medical advice. You had more than one seizure last night,” she told her. “I would feel better about letting you leave if there was someone here to pick you up.”

“I’m fine,” Chloe insisted again, and stood from the bed. “I’m going straight home, and I’ll stay there all night, ok?” she offered the platitude.

“ _Nothing_ strenuous,” the nurse told her with a pointed stare. “At least for the next four days. And if you find yourself experiencing memory lapses, or more seizures, I want you to come back in. _Chloe_ ,” the nurse cautioned her when she donned her jacket, and Chloe met her gaze. “Another thirty minutes and that antidote wouldn’t have worked. The line got cut pretty close. Just be careful.”

“I will be,” Chloe promised, and offered her thanks as she left the room.

There was only place she wanted to be, and only one person she wanted to be with, Chloe thought as she reached for her phone. The battery was dead, but she would charge it in the car on her way to LUX. She smiled as she stepped into the elevator, pulling her keys from her pocket as it carried her to her destination, and smiled when the doors opened to the hall that would take her to the skywalk.

She looked down at the keys in her hand with an affectionate grin, and rubbed the pad of her thumb over the small piece of paper Lucifer had tucked into the threads of her keyring, the location of her car noted on it. Her poisoning had shaken him, she thought as she walked across to the parking garage. It had shaken her, too. But it had also brought everything into focus, and she had wanted nothing more than to be with him since the moment she’d woken up.

“I’m ready, Lucifer,” she whispered to herself as she made her way to her car. “I’m ready.”

 

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

  


Chloe took in a deep breath as she stepped into the elevator and closed her eyes. For the first time, in a very long time, she wasn’t afraid. From the moment she’d woken up in the hospital after collapsing at the party, to this moment now in the elevator, the only thing she had been able to think about was how much she wanted Lucifer in her life. Every time she had closed her eyes, he had been there in her mind, in her dreams. The night she had visited him after Father Frank had been shot, to the morning he had joined her for breakfast after Perry Smith’s trial, to the day on the beach when she had kissed him, every moment played through her mind on a loop until she had known, without a doubt, that Lucifer Morningstar was the one she wanted.

With everyone else, even with Dan, she had been guarded. There was a shield around her heart, strong enough to protect her from almost anything, but around Lucifer, that shield had been oddly absent. He had made her _want_ to feel. He fueled her passion, encouraged her success, and stood by her even when everyone else was adamant that she was wrong. He made her feel safe, protected, desired, in a way that she had never felt before. The words he’d spoken to her on the beach came back to her as she leaned forward to press the button that would carry her up to Lucifer’s penthouse.

_“You deserve someone worthy of you, and that isn’t me.”_ Lucifer’s voice sounded inside her mind when she closed her eyes. _“You deserve someone better, because you, detective, are selfless to a nauseating degree. You always put your daughter first, even though the ungrateful urchin does nothing to contribute to the rent. So, you deserve someone worthy of that grace. Someone, who at every crime scene breaks your heart, even though you’d never admit it. Someone who actually appreciates your impossibly boring middle name – Jane. More importantly, detective, you deserve someone as good as you. Because, well, you’re special, and I’m . . . I’m not worth it.”_

Chloe lifted her fingers to her lips, the feel of Lucifer’s kiss still tingling upon her skin. He had told her that he wasn’t worth it, and in the moment of his confession, she knew that he was. She had been waiting, hoping, that he would give her a sign that she was more to him than just another notch on his bedpost. What he had done, instead, was tell her that he loved her without ever saying the words. They had parted on the beach after their kiss because neither one had wanted to rush anything, but the case of Dr. Jacob Carlyle had gotten in the way of everything that had begun.

“I’m not scared anymore, Lucifer,” Chloe said to herself as she looked at her reflection in the brushed steel doors. “I was for a long time, but I’m not anymore. I always thought that I was just a game to you, a toy, but you proved to me that I wasn’t.” She nodded as she smiled and looked up as she blinked back the tears stinging behind her eyes. “You might be right, maybe I deserve better, but I want you. I want _you_ , Lucifer,” she admitted out loud, and took in a deep breath as the elevator came to a stop.

Chloe released a slow deep breath as she closed her eyes and waited for the elevator doors to open. As nervous as she was, she also felt calm and confident. She and Lucifer had been building up to this for months, and she nodded to herself as she heard the doors slide open. She frowned at the darkness that greeted her, and called out Lucifer’s name as she stepped out of the elevator. This felt wrong, she thought as she looked around, and reached for the light switch. The penthouse felt empty.

Blinking as the soft white light filled the room, she stilled, her lips falling open as she stared at the furniture covered in white sheets. She called Lucifer’s name again as apprehension tightened around her heart, and walked closer to the piano, her breath coming in stilted gasps. She shook her head as she called for him again, and felt the room spin around her as she made her way to the couch. He was renovating, she tried to tell herself as she sat down on the couch, but even she was forced to admit the frailty of the thought.

There was nothing to renovate. No walls to be painted, no floors to be redone. His home was structured from glass and Italian marble, and ceramic tile polished to a mirror shine. Nothing was broken, or out of place. There was no need for him to vacate, especially not after buying the building back from Eleanor Bloom. When she’d had LUX marked as a historical landmark, Lucifer hadn’t simply bought back the club and the penthouse, he’d purchased the entire building. There was no landlord to kick him out, she reasoned as she leaned forward and propped her elbows on her thighs as she dropped her face into her hands.

He couldn’t be gone, she denied as she looked up, her hands steepled over her nose and mouth. She shook her head as she dropped her hands and stood from the couch, only to fall back down with a harsh exhalation. Her vision blurred as spots danced before her eyes, and she panted as she leaned forward. She blinked quickly when she lost her vision completely for a few seconds, and frowned in confusion when she heard Lucifer’s voice sound near her.

“Lucifer?” she called out, her voice soft and confused.

_“Darling, you’re exhausted,”_ Lucifer said with amusement, his voice almost like an echo. _“Lie down for a bit,”_ he said, and she felt a gentle pressure against her shoulder.

“Trixie,” she protested weakly, and pulled her feet up on the couch as the sheet draping the sofa fell down to cover her.

_“You’ve already said yourself that’s she’s safe with her father,”_ he said, and Chloe released a harsh grief-stricken laugh.

 “This is a memory,” Chloe said, her voice trembling as she laid down on her side, and pulled her knees to her chest. “It’s just a memory,” she whispered as consciousness slipped away.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song featured in this chapter is "Lost It All" by Black Veil Brides.


	2. Chapter 1: Hold On

AN: Lucifer and all recognizable characters belong to Jerry Bruckheimer and FOX television. Set post 'A _Good Day to Die_ '. (Written during the Spring break before the airing of ' _Candy Morningstar_ ') While some scenes may seem similar to scenes in, or after, _Candy Morningstar_ , this story is not meant to follow the TV’s aired storyline, and is of my own creation.

 

Summary: Unable to accept the guilt of the pain she had caused her son, she turned her rage on the one person she believed had caused it all. Charlotte may have promised Lucifer that she wouldn't directly kill Chloe, but she never said anything about not influencing someone else to go after the detective. If she couldn't kill the woman with her own two hands, just maybe she could make Chloe do it herself.

 

 

 

 

Ashes of Eden

 

Chapter 1

**_“Hold On”_ **

by WhisperingWolf

 

 

 

 

 

For the first time in longer than he could remember, Amenadiel had believed he was finally beginning to understand his brother. He was the eldest of all their siblings, and Lucifer was the youngest. There were so many brothers and sisters between them that somehow, somewhere, Lucifer had simply gotten lost to him along the way. Maybe he had never really tried to understand him, Amenadiel thought as he stepped out of the elevator, and looked up at the penthouse in front of him.

He felt his breath still in his lungs as his lips parted and fell open in disbelief. After everything that had happened, after as close as he knew his brother and the detective had become, after killing himself just to go to back to Hell in order to save her, Lucifer had left. No word, no note, no hint that he even intended to do so, he thought with incredulity. How could he just leave?

“Chloe,” Amenadiel whispered the woman’s name as his eyes came to rest on her.

He moved to her side quickly, his height allowing him to cover the distance to the couch she laid on in a few long strides. He frowned as he knelt down beside her, and pushed her hair back over her shoulder to see the furrow between her brows, the confused sadness that showed on her face even in her sleep. Her complexion was pale, ashen almost, and as he reached out to touch her cheek, he found himself afraid that they might lose her.

Chloe was Lucifer’s human, he thought with a pensive frown. Even still, he found himself concerned about her, worried over her suffering, and wondered why and when she had come to be of concern to him. Was it because she meant something to Mazikeen? Was it because Mazikeen meant something to him, and therefore he worried over Chloe by default? Amenadiel released a silent snort of amusement as he closed his eyes and bowed his head.

No amount of questioning himself would provide the answers he was looking for. The only thing he did know for certain was that she did mean something to him. He had watched over her in the hospital, protected her while Lucifer did what he had to in order to save her, but in those moments, something had changed.

“Lucifer?” Chloe called out softly when Amenadiel touched her cheek.

“Amenadiel,” he corrected her softly, his tone regretful as he watched the corners of her mouth turn down in a frown as she slept.

“Lucifer,” she said again, his brother’s name slurred on her lips.

Amenadiel sighed as he realized she wasn’t talking to him, wasn’t responding to his touch so much as she was calling out for his brother to return to her. Had Lucifer realized just how deeply Chloe felt about him, would his brother still have abandoned her? Or had he abandoned her because he was just as irrevocably entwined, he wondered. He used to believe that Lucifer ran away from responsibility, but maybe the answer was simpler than that, he thought as he gathered Chloe into his arms and stood, cradling her against his chest.

Maybe, Amenadiel thought as he carried Chloe to the elevator, maybe Lucifer hadn’t run from responsibility. Maybe his brother had run from the permanence of her, the promise of something more. He could still remember the nights before his brother’s infamous rebellion. It hadn’t happened out of the blue, but neither had it been well planned. Lucifer – Samael – had been at the height of his music, his one true passion, but there had been something he’d sought in the music he created that he couldn’t get anywhere else. Freedom.

His brother had desired the simplicity of free will, the ability to play his music wherever and however he desired. He had wanted the simple joy of being one with the music he created. Hadn’t that been what had ultimately caused the rift between them so long ago, Amenadiel asked himself as the elevator carried him down to the club below, his lips drawing up to the side in a fleeting crooked grin when Chloe tucked her face against the curve of his throat. It had been Samael’s gift to lead Heaven’s choirs, to bring song and life to the Silver City, but his brother hadn’t wanted to play the music desired by others.

There had always been a part of Lucifer that had been fascinated by humans, by the music they created, even before they had a language to construct lyrics with. The drumming had been a language of its own, the sound of air as it passed through the hollowed-out animal horns and bones, the whisper of the wind through the tiny wooden chimes constructed by the earliest of humans who only understood that the thinning or thickening of the wooden blocks on longer or shorter strings changed their sounds.

But their father hadn’t wanted Lucifer to teach the humans to create music as he did. He hadn’t wanted Lucifer to be enamored with the humans. No, Amenadiel thought as he nodded to the man polishing down the bar as he prepared to close LUX for the day, their father had wanted Lucifer to worship the humans as the angels worshipped God. But to Lucifer, that had been blasphemy. Humans weren’t perfect, they were creatures consumed by jealousy and greed, desire and disdain. For all that they created, they destroyed that much more.

Amenadiel, and so many of their other siblings, had done as God asked simply because he had asked them to do so, but not Samael. Not Lucifer. His brother had challenged their father, demanding he see his own creation for what they were – flawed. ‘ _Flawed, but beautiful_ ,’ that had been how Lucifer had described them. But in his brother’s struggle to show their father the truth of what he saw, Lucifer had instead caused a rebellion that had caused massive ripples throughout their home.

It was the one thing Lucifer still refused to talk about in any detail, Amenadiel thought as he nodded his thanks to a waitress that held the door open for him so that he could carry Chloe out to the car. Lucifer would mention the rebellion in passing, but only if someone else mentioned it first. He would admit to having caused it, to have sought something more than what he had, but not once would his brother ever talk about that time without being prodded into it. He always held back.

“She’s alright,” Amenadiel told Mazikeen as she strode toward him quickly, her steps just short of a run.

“Why did he let you take her?” she asked, confusion furrowing her brow. “Why didn’t you just leave her with Lucifer?”

“Because he’s gone, Maze,” he told her quietly, his tone as heavy as the emotion that darkened his eyes. “Lucifer’s gone.”

 

 

 

 

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

 

 

The light around him flickered as the air nearby became alive, almost furiously so, and he blinked as he turned around. It had been some time since he had seen his children, or talked to most of them. While his children felt the passage of time, he didn’t. Being immune to its power made years feel like seconds, and centuries feel like hours.

God frowned as he turned, his eyes scanning the horizon of the planet he was overseeing. Much like Earth, this place had forests and rivers, mountains and valley. There were land masses full of flowering species, and others so barren that it took only the wind to change their shape. He wasn’t sure when he had started this project, and when he thought back on it now, he couldn’t remember why, either.

Humanity had been his biggest project, his favorite, if he were being honest with himself, but somewhere along the way, it had lost his attention. The last time he had looked back on Earth, and the people inhabiting it, he’d wanted nothing to do with it. So, he had turned here, to a land of purple skies, red grasses, and wind that smelled of wildflowers and honey. When he thought back on it now, he couldn’t remember if he had created the planet, or if it had already been here.

Another shockwave rippled through the air toward him, spirals and snaps of energy stinging against his consciousness until he turned and gave into their demands. He followed the ripples back home, confusion warring with upset at the uproar that greeted him. His children were in turmoil. Some raged, while others mourned, but still there were those who seemed to feel nothing, as though the emotions coursing through them were too strong to be expressed.

He stepped through the masses, making his way to the largest crowd of his children, and felt dumbstruck by the way they stood. Twenty of his children had formed themselves into a circle, their wings tucked under and wrapped over one another as they stood in a half bow, the angle of their torsos creating a shield for whatever was in the center. It didn’t take much more than a touch upon their wings, and a quiet word, a promise of his presence, for them to move and open the circle to him.

“Azrael,” God whispered in horror as he knelt down beside his fallen daughter. “Who did this?” he demanded, and watched as the faces those who had guarded Azrael turned dark.

“Where have you been?” Michael demanded as he stepped forward. “Do you have any idea how long it’s been, Father? Or what’s been happening in your absence?”

“Tell me,” God demanded in return as he stood, his eyes locked with Michael’s.

“When you left us, Father,” Michael said to him, his tone cold and angry. “The humans had began what they called ‘The Crusades’. It has been over seven hundred years since that time.”

“Seven hundred?” God whispered with a shake of his head.

“How long has it been for you?” Gabriel asked, his tone a mix of curiosity and suspicion as he stepped forward from the shadows.

“For me, my son,” God said stunned, his words a confused entreaty, “it’s barely been a day.”

“A _day_?” Michael snarled as he advanced, only to be held in place by the power of God’s stare.

“You have always been too quick to act, Michael, too angry,” he said as he studied his son. “It has made you a formidable warrior, but I fear it has not made you a good person. Gabriel,” he said as he turned to his left. “Tell me what has happened.”

“The short version?” Gabriel offered, as he offered his father a raised brow stare and shrugged. “Lucifer left Hell and took Mazikeen with him. They’ve been living on Earth among the humans for the past six years. Amenadiel left to take him back to Hell a year ago, and he has not returned. Amenadiel has chosen to stay on Earth.”

“And this?” God asked as he motioned to Azrael’s body.

“I don’t know what inspired this,” Gabriel told him. “None of us do, but one day Uriel just . . . He just . . . _lost_ it. He used his skill for patterns to defeat Azrael, but instead of disarming her, he took her blade and killed her with it. And then he, too, went down to Earth.” He was quiet for a moment as he stared at Azrael’s body, his expression unreadable. “Uriel met his end. We all felt it. Surely, Father, you must have felt it, too.”

“The shockwaves,” God said with a nod as he met Gabriel’s gaze. “I felt them only a few seconds ago.”

“A few _seconds_?” Michael raged. “It’s been _months._ ”

God didn’t respond to Michael’s anger as he turned and left. He needed to be inside of the place he had created for himself here in Heaven. It was a viewing room that his children couldn’t enter, a place where he existed as only energy without the form that his children were used to seeing him in. The form was, in a sense, something of their own creation, and he had learned long ago that each of his children saw him differently.

Michael had always, in some manner, seen him as a rival. It was for that reason, that he appeared to Michael and Raphael as an aged warrior, but where Raphael saw a man looking for peace, Michael had seen one looking for war. To Gabriel, he looked like a man with experience, but still young with curiosity. His thoughts fell silent as he realized that he couldn’t remember how he had looked to Samael. He had been the one to cast him out, he remembered that, but no matter how hard he searched, he couldn’t remember why he had ever been so mad at him to begin with.

Closing himself off to everything around him, God focused his attention on Earth, and sent out pulses of energy as he searched for a way in. He couldn’t go down to Earth as his children did, a lack of physical form prevented that. He would need a human, and that human would need a totem, something that carried his energy. The vibrations of energy he’d sent out came back to him, swirling and folding around themselves as they rushed toward him like the surf crashing against the beach.

“The Medallion of Life,” he said to himself as he looked down through the clouds, and felt a sense of disbelief and humor at where it had ended up. “A belt buckle indeed,” he said as he let his energy shine through the object, making the Heavenly silver appear brighter and more appealing to the bearded man looking at it.

In the span of one human breath, he was no longer looking down at the man from Heaven, but rather through the man’s eyes as he inhabited his body. There was a sense of relief from the human soul, and God frowned as he stepped out of the small shop. The memories were easy to view, and he felt the same sense of tired dissatisfaction in the human soul as he had felt in himself so long ago. This human had everything he wanted, but for as much joy as it had brought him, it had also left him feeling empty rather than fulfilled.

“The good news, my friend,” God said, his thoughts directed toward the human soul whose body he was inhabiting. “When I leave, you will remember nothing. I just need to borrow you for a while, and if I can, I will leave your life the better for it.”

 

 

 

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

  


Mazikeen held the door open for Amenadiel as he carried Chloe inside of the apartment they shared. She hadn’t stirred once on the ride home from LUX, and in some manner, that had worried her more than if the woman had woken and raged at Lucifer for being gone. There was a darkening of her aura, a quietness to her soul that almost felt like defeat, she thought as she closed and locked the apartment door.

“The child?” Amenadiel asked as he turned to look back at Mazikeen.

“Dan has her for right now,” she told him as she stepped around him to lead him down the hall to Chloe’s room. “The doctors said she needed low activity for the next few weeks at least, so Dan took her home with him.”

She looked back to see the angel frown, concern etched in the lines between his brows as he turned his eyes down to the woman in his arms. Being here on earth had changed her, and while emotions were still a mystery to her, she wasn’t immune to the effect this would have on Chloe. Her friend had almost lost her life, but survived only to lose so much more. Lucifer was gone, and with no one able to reach him, there was no one who could tell them when, or if, he would return. But she also knew that Chloe would see the temporary change in her daughter’s residence as a loss as well.

It was one of the few things about Chloe that Mazikeen actually understood, she thought as she pulled back the blankets and watched as Amenadiel lowered the woman in his arms to the bed. Chloe defined herself by her daughter, by the life she was responsible for. In much the same manner, Mazikeen had defined herself by the way she guarded Lucifer. The dynamics of the relationships were not nearly the same, but the responsibility to protect, to ensure the safety and care of the person they were bound to, that was something Mazikeen understood.

In some manner, Mazikeen thought as she reached down to remove Chloe’s shoes and jacket, Chloe was hers to protect. Perhaps she had moved in with the detective to share expenses, to free herself from Lucifer, but what had started out as almost a business relationship had become something more. Working quietly as she unfastened the snap and zipper of Chloe’s jeans, she removed the woman’s trousers, and tossed the clothing to the floor as she reached for the blankets.

“Lucifer?”

Mazikeen stilled as she looked down at the sound of Chloe’s whispered voice, watching as the woman’s eyes opened, only to fall closed once more. She sighed as she covered Chloe with the blankets, and turned to sit next to her on the bed. Her skin was still pale, still ashen. The doctor had warned her that Chloe would have moments where she appeared, and may even feel, to be back to normal over the next few days, but the offset of that would be her exhaustion.

_“Remind her, if you need to, that she’s still healing,” the doctor had said when he called to check in on Chloe. “I wasn’t there in time to stop her from leaving, but the nurse with her said Detective Decker was more than a bit stubborn in her insistence that she was fine. Don’t be surprised if she collapses again,” he offered in gentle warning. “As she begins to heal, she will go through periods of high energy countered by periods of very low to no energy. None of the other victims of the poisoning came as close as she did to death. Encourage her to take it easy, to rest. Her body went through Hell, and she has to give it time to heal.”_

“Maze?”

She turned her head to look up at Amenadiel, half surprised to find him there, and realized she had forgotten he was still with them. She turned her attention back to Chloe, and reached out to tuck the blankets up around her friend’s shoulders before she stood from the bed. Mazikeen remained silent, pensive, as she followed Amenadiel out into the apartment, pulling the bedroom door closed behind her. There was too much, too many emotions that she couldn’t sort through or makes sense of, she thought as she stepped past the angel into the kitchen and reached for a bottle of whiskey kept in cabinets above the counters.

“Are you okay?” Amenadiel asked, and Mazikeen turned around to scoff at him, only to be silenced by the honest concern in his expression.

“I . . . I don’t know,” she answered honestly, and looked down at the bottle in her hand before setting it aside.

What the alcohol offered was familiar, a dulling of the emotions she had no desire to understand, but in that moment, she found herself lacking any kind of desire for the spirit. She sighed as she leaned back against the island counter behind her and crossed her arms over her chest as she crossed her ankles. The pose would have appeared relaxed, had it not been for the way she bowed her head, and the furrow between her brows.

“I don’t pretend to understand any of this,” Mazikeen said as she looked up to meet Amenadiel’s gaze. “But I’m not blind, either. I’ve lived with Chloe for more than six months, and in that time, I’ve watched her come home from work after being with Lucifer all day, and while he may have his own ability to annoy and piss her off, I’ve also never seen her happier. But the nights that she goes to see him, the mornings after when she comes home,” Mazikeen said, and heaved a tumultuous sigh.

Her eyes turned down to the floor in front of her as she thought back to the night almost a week ago, and the conversation she and Linda had shared over drinks. It had been nothing more than an idle thought, one too quick to silence, that she had spoken aloud and shifted the topic of conversation from the television show Linda had gotten her hooked on to Chloe and Lucifer.

_“She seems happier,” Mazikeen said, blinking as she pulled back when she realized she’d spoken her thought out loud._

_“Who seems happier?” Linda asked, her curiosity peaked, and Mazikeen shook her head at herself._

_“Chloe,” she said simply, and turned her attention to the crowd in the pub around them. “Ever since Perry Smith’s trial, Chloe’s seems happier,” she said as she turned her attention back to Linda. “More . . . peaceful, I guess.”_

_Linda nodded sagely, but Mazikeen could see that the woman already had her own opinions about the observation set firmly in her mind._

_“And how does Lucifer seem to you?” she asked, and for once Mazikeen wished her friend wasn’t Lucifer’s therapist._

_“He’s changed,” Mazikeen told her with a shrug as she sat back against her chair and crossed her arms. “He’s_ been _changing since the moment he met her, but lately he seems different, too.”_

Mazikeen released an amused breath as she looked up and shook her head. Linda had been telling her without saying the words, she realized, and nodded to herself.

“She’s as in love with him as he is with her. Yeah, Lucifer’s still proiscuous,” she admitted with a fleeting lopsided grin, before her expression turned serious once more. “But he’s not nearly as much as he once was. What he and Chloe have is intimacy,” she said as she recited the words Linda had spoken to her a few days prior. “What Lucifer has with everyone else, is a distraction.”

 

 

 

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

  


Lucifer blinked as he looked up at the lights covering either side of the road, his brow furrowed in confusion as he stared at the people milling about the sidewalks and in the street. Arching a brow when the man walking past his car made cat-calls to the vehicle, he sighed. There had been no plan to come to this place, no thought in his mind other than getting out of Los Angeles, but somehow, he had ended up here, in Las Vegas. Of all the places to be, how was this city supposed to make him forget about his home, about Chloe?

The bright lights, the music and sounds spilling out of every doorway and alley, the women in short skirts and heels almost too high to walk in, the promise of debauchery, all of it reminded him of LUX, but none of it was familiar. To the Devil, this was his playground, the humans seeking to drink and gamble away their troubles. Las Vegas was a city built on sin, and swimming in corruption. All of it should be a lure, it always had been a lure, though now, the only thing that lured him in was the promise of alcohol, the beauty of oblivion.

He directed his car into the parking structure for the Luxor hotel, letting the valet drive it in for him, while he went up to the concierge desk to order a room for the night. A smile here, a bit of charm there, and one simple question was all it took to secure the most lavish room available. He didn’t care that the favor in return had been to scare a man that had been stealing from the casino in the hotel, a flash of his eyes and a deadly smile had been all it took. The only thing he did care about, was the bottle of scotch he bought off the bartender, and the distraction of the craps table.

Over a hundred thousand dollars up in less than an hour, and already halfway through his second bottle of scotch, Lucifer took the new pair of die from the dealer and shook them in his fist before tossing them onto the table as he turned his back to the game. The screams sounded around him, the cheers and rejoicing. Humans celebrating the win he had made as they lived vicariously through him. He lifted the bottle to his lips as his dark eyes rolled up slowly, scanning over the pair of shapely legs and inviting curves to the face of the woman walking toward him.

She’d been sent by the casino manager, no doubt. Someone to either encourage him to play a different game, or somehow take his luck, and he might be worried about the latter – if he believed in such things. His lips came off the bottle with a dull pop, as he watched her lazily, a grin twisting his lips until he met her gaze. _Her_ gaze, he thought as his breath misted over his damp lips, trembling as he closed his mouth to swallow thickly.

Blue eyes, as blue as the sky above, that darkened as she let her eyes wander over him. Blonde hair that was tossed around her face in what could only be described as ‘beach curls’, the kind of laisse faire style that made her appear all too touchably soft and hauntingly ethereal at the same time. He blinked when she stopped before him, his brows drawing together as he tipped his head in confusion. Seeing her coming at him from across the room, he had sworn her eyes were blue, but now that she was standing in front of him, he could see they were a soulful brown. Doe eyes, he thought with a shake of his head.

“Chloe?” he spoke her name before realizing he’d said anything at all.

“Just call me Candy, sweetheart,” she purred to him, and stepped close to twine her arm with his. “Why don’t we take this somewhere more private?” she suggested, and he narrowed his eyes as he studied her.

A few months ago, Hell, a few weeks ago, he would have taken her up on her offer without a second thought, uncaring to her motives so long as he enjoyed himself along the way, but he was different now. The offer she made was in her voice, but not her eyes. She was enticing him to have sex with her, but she didn’t want the same. If she didn’t want to be doing this, he thought, his confusion amplified by his quickly receding intoxication, then why was she?

“My winnings,” he said absently, not truly caring about the money, but trying to give her an out.

“Will be delivered up to your room,” she promised with a husky chuckle. “Come on, big guy. Don’t tell me you don’t want to play,” she teased him.

“Course I do,” he said, his words slightly slurred as he wavered on his feet, and lifted the bottle to his lips as he sought to dull the agony he felt. “But you don’t,” he said as they stepped into the elevator, the doors closing around them. “Why offer to play if you don’t want to?” he asked her, and pouted when she took the bottle away from him before he could drown himself anymore in the alcohol.

“It’s not so bad,” she said, and he frowned as he got the distinct impression that it was indeed _that bad_.

“Candy,” he called to her, and waited for her to look at him, capturing her gaze as he focused his energy on her. “Tell me, darling, what do you desire?”

She leaned into him as she sighed, the false seduction in her expression slipping away to reveal a woman who looked tired, and in some manner hopeless. “My freedom,” she said simply, and gasped as she shook herself loose from his charms. “Frankie warned me about you,” she said ruefully as she shook her head. “Said you were some kind of magician,” she told him as she tucked herself under his arm, and helped him out of the elevator.

“Not a magician,” he scoffed, and reached for the bottle of scotch she’d taken from him earlier. “Not some wanker playing with rabbits,” he dismissed, and heaved a soul-weary sigh. “I’m the devil,” he said, all traces of his normal fanfare and arrogance gone. He started to laugh, and shook his head when she met his gaze with confusion. “Nothing but a pawn,” he told her, not seeing the way her frown deepened as he turned away.

“I’ve got it,” Candy said as she plucked the key card from his hand, and opened the door of his suite. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” she asked as he nursed from the bottle, the amber liquid burning a path down his throat to settle in a molten pool in his belly.

“Never lasts long,” he told her, his lips moving against the bottle as his voice echoed back to him from inside the thick glass, ripples dancing across the surface of the alcohol stirred by his breath. “Barely get shitfaced before it’s gone again. Bloody supernatural metabolism. Just ‘nother one of Dad’s tricks,” he sneered, and fell to sit in the stuffed chair behind him with little grace. “Is it too much to ask that I be able to stay drunk?” he shouted at the ceiling. “Just this once? You’ve taken everything else, you bloody sadistic wanker, at least let me have this.”

“Tell me what happened?” Candy requested, her voice a soothing balm on his already strained nerves. “Does it have anything to do with Chloe?” she asked, and Lucifer felt his anger spike, only to be tempered by the pain he felt at the detective’s absence.

“Would have given her anything,” he said as the haze of the alcohol wore off, leaving him exhausted and downtrodden. “I would’ve pulled down the stars for her. Anything,” he said, his voice a pained whisper. “But it was all a lie. Just another way Dad used me, but this time it’s so much worse, because he used _her_. She’s pure, and sweet, smart, and brave,” he lamented, and sighed as he set the bottle aside on the table beside his chair, finding the drink more than a little repulsive at the moment. “She made me _want_ to be better than I was. She made me _want_ to deserve her. But it’s not fair to her, she loves me and doesn’t even know why, doesn’t know that’s it’s all part of Dad’s manipulations. Doesn’t know that her emotions aren’t her own. Why create her just to destroy her?” he asked as he met Candy’s eyes, hoping that she somehow held the answer.

“I don’t think love is supposed to make sense, that’s why it’s such a great mystery,” she offered with a one-shouldered shrug. “I’m supposed to be up here for at least a few hours, long enough for us to have done something,” she told him, and he snorted in amusement.

“Darling,” he purred with a salacious leer, “if we were doing _something_ ,” he teased her as he leaned forward slightly, only to fall back against his chair with a prideful smile. “You wouldn’t be leaving until well after dawn.”

“Well, in that case, I have plenty of time,” she told him with a friendly smile. “Tell me about Chloe,” she asked of him. “You said she loves you.”

Lucifer snorted as he tipped his head back to rest against the high back of the chair behind him, and looked up at the ceiling. “Chloe doesn’t go around kissing people,” he told her with an exhalation, the breath he released holding an air of amusement as he tipped his head up to meet her gaze. “She’s holds back so much of herself, loves to be in control . . . She’s a cop,” he said after a moment, his expression proud, as he smiled at something only he could see.

“You told me that,” she said with a smile, her nod slow. “Homicide detective, yes?”

“The best,” he replied with a proud grin. “First time we worked together she got shot,” he said as his smile fell away, his tone growing somber as he remembered how close her brush with death actually was.

Lucifer looked up as he watched the emotions pass over Candy’s face, her genuine interest and openness refreshing, and realized absently that he wasn’t simply thinking about that night, but telling her everything that had happened. He fell silent, his lips pressing into a flat line as he swallowed with difficulty, and watched as she breathed in, her shoulders moving as she straightened. It was odd, he thought, for someone who worked in Las Vegas, she had no sense of judgement about her, no sense of boredom. The intelligence he could see in her eyes was out of place for the job she held, and it made no sense to him.

“You love her,” she said, her words a statement of fact, her gentle smile seen in the barest curve of her lips. “Deeply.”

His lips parted as he pulled in a breath, intent on denying how attached he was, only to find the story of his life with Chloe spilling out instead. The cases they’d worked, the danger they’d both been in, the times he’d died for her, the pact he’d made with his father for her. He told her the things he hadn’t told Linda, the uncertainty and fear that had kept him home instead of meeting Chloe at the steakhouse for what would have been their first official date. He’d blown that chance quite spectacularly, but she had given him another, an intimate dinner just between them. He never had told her that he’d made the food himself, not willing to chance something so important to someone else.

He closed his eyes as he spoke about the confession he’d made to Chloe, the certainty with which he’d told her that she deserved better than him, and the kiss she had bestowed upon him in reply. Everything had changed in that moment. He had fallen more deeply into her than he ever thought possible, _feeling_ so much more than he even had the words to describe. The elation, the love, the fairytale, all of it had been shattered in the blink of an eye, and the knowledge that Chloe had been put there by his father.

“I didn’t quite understand that last part,” Candy said, and Lucifer frowned as he blinked at her in surprise, having forgotten she was there, or that he was even talking. “Your father put Chloe in your path?” she asked with a confused shake of her head.

“I’m the Devil,” he told her, and arched a brow when she released a breathy laugh and shook her head. “You don’t believe me?” he asked with amusement.

“I have met men who claimed to be devils,” she told him, her gaze steady and hard. “I have met men, and women, who delight in the pain and torment of others. I have seen evil,” she told him. “You’re not it.”

“A little point of correction for you, darling,” he offered with a barely-there lopsided grin. “The Devil – me – _I_ am not evil. I _punish_ evil. That is what the devil does.”

“Punish evil?” she asked, and he frowned at her tone, the edge of hope that told him she needed a devil on her side, that maybe the evil she saw was something she dealt with every day. “I’ve heard too many false promises, too many lies.”

“You want proof?” he asked, and she nodded. “The last person I offered proof to wound up on this side of mad,” he warned her, and Candy shook her head.

“Try me,” she said, her conviction unwavering, and Lucifer took in a deep breath as he sat forward and rested his forearms on his knees.

“Alright,” he agreed, and remained silent as he let his face change. “You’re not afraid,” he said as he blinked at her with wonder.

“After everything I’ve seen here?” she asked him, as his Devil’s face receded. “I’ve seen worse than you. Their faces may not change quite as much as yours, but I’ve seen men here who delight in the pain of others, and even more than that, delight in the fear they can make someone feel by forcing them to witness it.”

“And you’ve been that someone,” he stated knowingly, and watched her nod. “Why are you here?” he asked her, and she narrowed her eyes in question. “In the lift, you said you desire your freedom. Why aren’t you free now?”

Candy took in a deep breath through her nose, her lips pursing as she bowed her head before looking up to meet his gaze. “A few years ago, I came here with my fiancée. We were pretty serious at the time, or at least I thought so.” She released a heavy sigh as she shook her head, a sardonic smile twitching her lips. “We just wanted to have a little fun. Instead, Kyle got himself into nearly a hundred thousand dollars in debt playing black jack. Neither of us could pay that kind of tab, and so Kyle made a deal with the pit boss to settle the score, a work release kind of thing.”

Lucifer released a harsh breath as he stared at her in disbelief. “Kyle traded you to pay off his debt,” he said, and she nodded. “And where is that bastard now?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since that night,” she said, anger coloring the edges of her tone. “He made the deal, and he left. I came down here for a _weekend_ with him to blow off steam before sitting for my thesis review, and I lost my life. I had everything lined up,” she told Lucifer, and he felt the rage inside him burn as he listened to her speak, but was careful to keep his expression as neutral as possible. “I had an internship set up, interviews for job openings. A few years in clinics, or private offices, and then I was going to do what I really wanted.”

“You were going to be a doctor,” he said, and she offered a wan smile.

“Psychologist,” she said, and turned her gaze toward windows, studying the bright lights that shown more brilliant in the darkness of night. “Once I felt more confident in my skills as a doctor, I was going to apply to the academy.” His brow furrowed when she turned her attention back to him, and she smiled sadly. “FBI. I wanted to be a criminal profiler, but after seeing everything that I have here, and knowing that the things Rex – the pit boss, my boss – has done, I don’t think I’d have the stomach for studying and chasing people like him down.”

“How much is he still owed?” Lucifer asked, and Candy shook her head.

“I don’t know,” she said. “He’s never once answered me, and he doesn’t pay me. I stay here, in the hotel. In his private suite.”

“And he does whatever he wants with you, doesn’t he?” he asked her, his lip curling up at the edge in an angry snarl.

“I tried to fight him, back in the beginning, I fought him as much as I could,” she told him. “He broke my wrist, my nose, so many other things. He’d hit me, and wouldn’t stop until I was still. There was one night I was certain he was going to kill me, and you know, I welcomed it. At least I would’ve been free of this Hell.”

“Wait here for me, darling,” he said to her as he stood from his seat, and stepped toward her. Lucifer put his hand on her shoulder as he met her gaze, “Tonight, you gain your freedom.”

 

 

 

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

  


His lips parted as he released a deep slow sigh, watching as the limo he’d tucked Candy in the back of pulled away from the curb. What he had thought would be easy, hadn’t been. The revenge he had wanted, the answers he craved, somewhere along the way, his desire for them had turned sour. He had let Candy go, let her move on however she wanted, and in turn, she had told him how to find her if he ever needed her help. Closing his eyes as he dropped his head, Lucifer tucked his hands into his pockets, the corners of his lips curling up in a humorless smile.

The night fell upon him in quiet whispers, the shadows beckoning him forth, willing him to join them so they could share in his sorrow. All the witty comebacks, all the leers, and jokes, and inappropriate quips, they all felt miles away from him now. He nodded to himself as he released a humorless laugh, the exhalation leaving his muscles aching from the weight of it all. Slipping behind the wheel of his Corvette, Lucifer pushed the key into the ignition, his hand holding it in place as he sat silent with his eyes closed, counting his heartbeats, before he turned the bit of metal and listened to the engine roar to life.

Chloe. His arms ached to hold her, he’d given anything to drown himself in her scent, her presence, but he knew he wasn’t strong enough to stand beside her, to be with her without _being_ with her as every cell of his being longed to be. If any of what had happened in the past twenty-four hours had taught him anything, it was that he was no good to her. What little bit of rest he had gotten in the hotel had only served to bring with it dreams – _nightmares_ – of each and every time he’d almost lost the detective, and the acrid smell of the many hospital rooms she’d been in.

But what had made all of it that much worse, had been the knowledge that – had his father _not_ interfered – Chloe would not exist. Every moment of their relationship was suspect to him now. Every glance, every brush of her hand on his, every flutter of his heart, the draw he felt to her, so encompassing, and so very unattainable. Pressing his lips into a thin line, Lucifer turned the wheel, pulling away from the curb as he maneuvered his car through the quiet streets of the small town he’d long forgotten the name of.

Pressing down on the brake pedal as he slowed to a stop at the red light, Lucifer reached for the controls of the radio and turned the music up loud enough to be heard over the sounds of the city around him. The upbeat rhythmic tones of rock and blues were more than he could take, and he turned the dial, scrolling through the stations until he found one playing the beginnings of a quieter ballad, the dulcet tones of the guitar offering him a somber invitation.

_Loving and fighting. Accusing, denying. I can’t imagine a world with you gone._

He stilled as the lyrics spoke to him, blinked as the image of Chloe’s face sprang to sharp relief in his mind. A ragged breath tore from him, the exhalation rolled in the back of his throat, turning into a single harsh cough to cover the emotions he’d dared not give in to. He reached for the dial again, intent on turning to a different channel, only to squeeze his eyes closed when he found himself unable to. The song brought Chloe back to him, and even if only in his memories, he couldn’t part with her so soon again when it felt as though she were sitting right there beside him.

_The joy and the chaos. The demons we’re made of. I’d be so lost if you left me alone._

Her laughter sounded around him in the echoes of memory, whispers of her voice calling to him from the ghosts of the past. The first time he’d met her, the day she’d been brazen enough to put handcuffs on him, and the adorable spark of irritation in her eyes when he’d handed them back to her. So many times, he’d teased her. So many times, he’d almost lost her. Lucifer took in a shaking breath as he remembered the night he’d knelt over her, shielding her from bullets the first time she’d almost left him. The relief he’d felt when she’d opened her eyes, and the stillness of his breath trapped in his lungs when she’d smiled at him. And as the memory overtook him, he could feel the tingle of her touch on his arm as she’d offered him her thanks, and the accompanying loss of balance when he’d found himself only barely able to meet her gaze.

_You locked yourself in the bathroom. Lying on the floor when I break through._

Lucifer blinked rapidly as the words washed over him, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he drove through the green light, and followed the signs through the city in his quest to find the highway. The rage of finding out the truth of Chloe’s origins had been overpowered by the sheer terror of seeing the blood on her face, the fear in her eyes, when she’d told him the bleeding wouldn’t stop. He tightened his grip around the steering wheel until his knuckles were bone-white and his fingers ached.

He coughed again, trying desperately to clear the golf ball-sized lump from his throat as he told himself that the singing he felt behind his eyes was due to the wind. His teeth ground together as he clenched his jaw, as he tried to remain unaffected by the memory of Chloe collapsing in his arms, the unbearable desperation he’d felt in that moment for her to open her eyes, to hear her say his name. He dropped his head as he slammed on the breaks, barely stopping in time for the light that blazed crimson in the dark, as the burning in his eyes manifested to moisture on his cheeks.

He could still feel the weight of her in his arms, the beat of his heart pounding stronger – _faster_ – than he’d ever known before, as he’d carried her into the emergency room. If asked now, he couldn’t have told anyone what he’d said when he’d ran into the hospital with her, the detective pale as a specter, his panic rising higher with every second that passed until someone had come to his aid.

_I pull you in to feel your heartbeat. Can you hear me screaming ‘Please don’t leave me’?_

He hadn’t wanted to release her to them, hadn’t wanted to let her go in any manner. Even after watching her wake, even after knowing that she would be just fine, he wasn’t able to reconcile his emotions from that moment with what he felt now. Of all the times she had been in danger, of all the situations they had faced together, that night had been the closest. Not even the encounter with Malcom Graham had been able to compare.

_Hold on, I still want you. Come back, I still need you._

Lucifer closed his eyes as he executed a right turn, following a sign he’d only half glanced at, and not realizing that he’d turned away from the interstate exit he’d needed. He could see her there next to him, all he had to do was blink quickly, and she was right there by his side smiling up at him as she always had. An unsteady laugh sounded from him as he remembered the way she’d screamed at him when he’d driven to chase the plane, and the absolute thrill he’d gotten from the way her soul had been positively electrified with the rise of her panic.

_Let me take your hand, I’ll make it right. I swear to love you all my life._

He couldn’t count the number of times he did something that annoyed her just so that he could see the fire in her eyes, the blush in her cheeks as her ire rose. In the beginning, it had been the women on his arm each night that had done the trick, but she’d become immune to that after a while. He’d found other ways, other things, that had gotten similar responses from her, but he had realized almost too late that what he craved the most, was the way he felt when she’d sit next to him at his piano. It had become his drug of choice, the feel of her soul reaching out to wrap around his, the warmth of her stare that burned through him as he’d fallen open beneath her searching gaze.

_Hold on, I still need you._

And that was the truth of it, wasn’t it? He did need her. He did want her. More than his freedom from Hell, more than the power he held as the Devil – the ruler of Hell – he would give it all up in the blink of an eye, just to be with her.

_A long endless highway, you’re silent beside me. Drivin’ a nightmare I can’t escape from._

The night they’d driven back from San Diego, and the law enforcement conference they’d been invited to speak at, but she’d been reluctant to attend. It was one of the few times she’d agreed to let him drive, leaving her cruiser behind in favor of his Corvette. She’d fallen asleep against his shoulder that night, and he’d lifted his arm to tuck her close to his side as he’d driven them back to LA. He’d kissed her brow when she’d sighed his name in her sleep.

Lucifer’s lips pulled up to the side as he remembered the feel of her warmth, the comfort of her scent, only to flinch when he heard the shrieking sound of police sirens, and pulled over to the side of the road as a marked car shot past him. The cloying alarms brought with them another unwelcomed memory, and his chest tightened in response as his breath caught in his throat.

_“Everything’s going to be fine once we get to the hospital. Okay?”_ he’d promised her that, and he’d been so very wrong.

Even now, the memory of his assurances sounded horribly pathetic and desperately hopeful to his own ears. Funny how things always seemed clearer when he looked back on them, then when he was there in the moment.

_Helplessly praying, the light isn’t fadin’. Hiding in the shock and chill in my bones._

He was nowhere near as unaffected as people had believed, his bravery only coming in the wake of hers. Every second that had passed, he’d felt that much closer to losing what little control he’d had. And no matter how glib he had been when asking his family to help kill him, he’d been all the more terrified that he wouldn’t save her in time. If he’d lost her, he would have lost himself. There would be no Lucifer, no Samael, no devil, or angel. If he’d lost Chloe, only the monster would remain.

_They took you away on a table. I pace back and forth as you lay still._

Lucifer’s fingers clenched into a fist, as blunt nails dug into the soft flesh of his palm, and when he closed his eyes, he was back there in that moment. The overwhelming cacophony of voices and machines, of scents too strong to ignore and too muddled to identify. He’d held Chloe as tightly as he dared, feeling her muscles quiver beneath her skin as she’d shivered closer to him, unconscious but still seeking his warmth.

He had set her down on the gurney only because the doctors had insisted, promising him that they would help her, that they would make her better, but she’d been still as death and just as pale. She hadn’t moved when they’d examined her, hadn’t responded when they’d called her name or shone lights in her eyes, and he’d very nearly screamed when the doctors had rolled her out of sight, taking her away from him.

_I pull you in to feel your heartbeat._

It had taken more willpower than he knew he had not to gather Chloe in his arms when the doctors had finally let him back to see her, and only because Dan had been there. She was his partner, his best friend, yet they denied him visitation rights until Dan had told them that he was allowed in. The only thing that had calmed him was the sight of her eyes fluttering open, and the reproachful gaze she had pinned him with.

_Can you hear me screaming ‘please don’t leave me'?_

Lucifer turned into the parking lot, not truly knowing where he was until he looked up at the signs of the two buildings in front of him, and froze, his foot on the brake, as he stared at the bent steel and glass. ‘Chloe Paints’ sat right next to ‘Decker Furniture’, but the words ‘paints’ and ‘furniture’ were less than half the size of their counterparts, and he felt betrayed by his own mind that he found himself here of all places.

“Chloe Decker,” he read their names, _her_ name, as he stared at the signs in front of him before closing his eyes and bowing his head.

_Hold on, I still want you. Come back, I still need you._

He’d made a deal with his father to save her life the first time, and died to save it the second. So many times in between, she had saved his without even knowing. He wondered if she had any idea how much she had become his savior, his gravity.

_Let me take your hand, I’ll make it right. I swear to love you all my life._

How many times had she taken away his pain? How many times had she calmed the emotions he couldn’t make sense of, just by sitting beside him? The scent of her surrounded him, rising up from his memories, and the night she’d sat beside him, playing the piano as she kept him from being alone. She’d given herself to him in a way that no one else ever had. Not with her body, but with her soul, and he’d never known how to repay her.

_Hold on, I still need you._

The ghost of her smile soothed him, the sound of her voice as she’d told him it was the only song she remembered, and he laughed as the piano whispered to him from his memory. Three times they had played _‘Heart and Soul’_ together, until finally he had taken her hand and led her away from the piano, sitting with her on his couch as he’d turned on the sound system with the remote he kept close by. The feel of her hands in his hair as she’d stroked him, comforted him, as she’d pulled him down gently to lay his head in her lap, the softness of her skin against his as she stroked his cheek with her fingertips until he’d fallen asleep.

_I don’t wanna let go. I know I’m not that strong._

He would never be free of her, no matter how far he traveled, and his full lips parted as he realized he wasn’t as upset by that as he was by the knowledge that she could never be his. Lucifer knew then that he would go back to LA, back to Chloe, and even if she kept him at arm’s length, it would be enough just to be near her. He was a selfish man, and for as much as he knew he needed to stay away to give her time to move on without him, was as much as he knew he would never move on from her.

_I just want to hear you saying “baby, let’s go home. Let’s go home.”_

If he returned to her and she asked him to stay, he would. Not because he loved her, not because he was afraid of what he would become without her, not because his father had created her, but simply because she had asked.

_Yeah, I just want to take you home._

The day after Perry Smith’s trial had ended, the morning he’d stood in her kitchen with her while she’d made the sandwiches for Trixie and himself that her father had once made for her, it had been the beginning of the end. That had been his moment of no return. He hadn’t known then, but he could see it looking back on the memories now, he had been as lost in her then as he was now.

_Hold on, I still want you. Come back, I still need you._

“Chloe Decker,” he whispered her name, his voice aching and quiet as he stared into the darkness of the night, feeling the warmth of her in his arms as his mind took him back to the moment she’d hugged him.

As much as it pained him to look away from the sign, to pull away from the buildings and drive out of the parking lot, he did. He left the stores behind, her name nothing more than a flash of crimson and white in the rearview mirror. The pain he felt, the burning ache in his chest that left him struggling for breath, it would all be worth it, if she was free in the end. He’d given his life for her, and now, he’d give up his soul, if only to know that she would be able to give her heart to someone who deserved it, someone who’d earned it. Someone better than him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Lucifer listens to is 'Hold On' by Chord Overstreet.


	3. Chapter 2 "Eve"

AN: Lucifer and all recognizable characters belong to Jerry Bruckheimer and FOX television. Set post 'A _Good Day to Die_ '. (Written during the Spring break before the airing of ' _Candy Morningstar_ ') While some scenes may seem similar to scenes in, or after, _Candy Morningstar_ , this story is not meant to follow the TV’s aired storyline, and is of my own creation.

 

Summary: Unable to accept the guilt of the pain she had caused her son, she turned her rage on the one person she believed had caused it all. Charlotte may have promised Lucifer that she wouldn't directly kill Chloe, but she never said anything about not influencing someone else to go after the detective. If she couldn't kill the woman with her own two hands, just maybe she could make Chloe do it herself.

 

 

Ashes of Eden

Chapter 2

**_“Eve”_ **

by WhisperingWolf

 

 

 

 

Lucifer sighed as he pulled off to the side of the road, parking the car up on a high lookout point, and turned off the engine. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been driving for, only that he felt cramped and oddly lonely inside the corvette. The need to get out and stretch his legs was persistent, bringing with it aches in his knees and hips that he knew weren’t really there. He didn’t feel pain in that manner, but his mind had somehow convinced his body that it did.

It wasn’t a bad idea to give the car a bit of rest as well, he thought as he stepped out, leaving the door open behind him as he moved over to look out from the top of the cliff. The view was breathtaking, the low lights of the sun coloring the sky in ribbons of violet, accented by deep oranges and swirling reds. A gentle wind blew past him, stirring his hair and the lapel of his shirt as he closed his eyes and lifted his face to welcome it.

The scent of lilacs carried on the breeze, accompanied by the earthy warmth of the rocks beneath his feet, and the crisp clean scent of the pines around him. Everywhere he looked there were towering evergreens, and oaks and maples so old, so large that they seemed to envelop the skyline. He released a harsh breath, somewhere between amusement and bitter irony as he felt a desire to spread his wings and let the wind carry him down through the forest below.

He never again would feel the wind holding him, supporting him, caressing his feathers, but that had been his choice to make. The first real choice that had been his alone, and as much as he wanted his wings now, he couldn’t bring himself to regret having Mazikeen cut them off, either. It was the first time he’d truly felt free – of everything.

“That’s enough of that,” he said to himself, as he turned away from the view, only to still as he looked at his car. “Bloody Hell,” he sighed as he rolled his eyes. “At what point did you believe this vehicle was yours?” he asked, studying the car as he crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s not, you know. You’re going to mess the upholstery.”

He shook his head as he rolled his eyes. There, curled together on his passenger seat, sleeping quite contently in a ball, were two fawns. Judging by the size of them and the markings on their fur, they couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old, if that. Still, they had somehow decided that his corvette was the perfect place to take a nap, and as much as he wanted to be annoyed, he found that he simply wasn’t. There was something soothing about them, as though they were inviting him closer, and he sighed as he gave into the feeling, and sat down in the driver’s seat, leaving the door open beside him.

“I’m not driving away with you in the car,” he told the pair, watching as the fawn facing him twitched her ears before opening her eyes.

She wasn’t frightened of him, not in the least, and lowered her head, reaching out for him when he moved to pet her. He wasn’t a fan of keeping pets, aside from Hellhounds, and as their names dictated, they were only in Hell, but here next to him was this tiny creature seeking his attention. She was quiet, with curious eyes that watched his every movement, and he laughed when she bopped her nose under his hand when he stopped petting her.

“I do believe you have a human counterpart named Beatrice,” he told the fawn, and watched as she folded one ear back before tilting her head as if in question. “She’s a bit like you,” he told her. “Always curious, always wanting attention.”

Her brother opened his eyes, the fawn’s eyes a darker shade of chocolate, and a bit more serious. Lucifer watched the animal as it studied him, tipping his head one way and then another, his ears swiveling almost completely behind him as he listened to his surroundings. At some point, the male of the pair had decided he was safe enough, and Lucifer opened his mouth to protest only to release a harsh sigh when the fawn climbed into his lap.

“This is Armani,” he told the creature only to roll his eyes as he watched the animal curl up in his lap to sleep. “This is what the devil has been reduced to? A napping place for woodland spawn?”

Looking up at the sound of hoofbeats near him, he stared out the open door of his car at the approaching doe, her ears flicking back and forth as she tried to assess what danger he posed to her and her young. Lifting his brows high as he motioned to the fawn in his lap, and his sister laying on the seat next him, he made it clear that being the young ones resting place had not been his idea.

“You’re their mother,” he told the doe, only to be answered with a snort as she shook her head, her long ears slapping against her head with the force of the force of the motion.

The doe stood taller, folding her ears halfway back until they laid almost flat, stretching her neck out as she reached into his lap and nipped at her son’s neck just above his shoulders. The fawn startled, shaking his head as he looked up at his mother and offered a curious noise, something between a bleat and chirp. Lucifer grunted a few seconds later as the male fawn used his thighs as a launching pad, and leapt gracefully out of the car.

“What? No goodbye?” he jested, and closed his eyes in annoyance when he felt the tongue of the female fawn next to him flick against his ear and the hair at his temple. “I suppose the term _rhetorical_ has no meaning to you, does it?” he asked as he turned to face her. Her honey-brown gaze was bright, and Lucifer’s eyes widened. “Are you laughing at me?” he accused the creature, only to be met with a wet kiss, seconds before she bopped him under his jaw with her long muzzle. “Bloody Hell.”

He leaned back against his seat as the smaller female bounded over him in a graceful arc, her hooves tapping against the road as she landed next to her mother. His eyes followed the trio as they turned, their mother leading the way, and disappeared into the forest only a few feet from the car. Of all the places he could have stopped, all the sites he could have seen, and it was a pair of nearly newborn fawns and their mother who had come to visit him.

“That’s not bloody funny,” Lucifer said as he looked up at the clouds overhead.

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

 

 

Washington D.C. He still wasn’t sure how he had ended up here, only that he had kept driving East until he had run out road. There had been no plan, no destination in mind, but this place was as good as any, and almost a direct line across the nation from Los Angeles. Breathing in deeply as he slipped his hands into his trouser pockets, he felt the thin plastic keycard nestled inside, the cool metal of his lighter tapping against it as he walked. Retrieving the slim polished cigarette case from his other pocket, he rubbed his thumb over the smooth silver, and flipped the case open only to close it once again before returning it to his pocket.

Blinking as he looked up at the centuries old lamppost a few yards ahead of him, Lucifer took stock of his surroundings, and sighed. It was a walk he had wanted, a short wander through the park across the street from extended stay luxury hotel he’d booked a penthouse suite at. But that had been a few miles, and several hours ago. He wasn’t certain where he was now, but by his estimate, he had to be across town from where he’d started. He was tired, he thought, and frowned as he looked down at the pavement beneath his feet. No, ‘tired’ wasn’t quite right. What he felt was deeper, darker. He wasn’t so much tired as he was soul-weary.

He turned his eyes up to the city around him, catching sight of a large computerized sign mounted on the side of a building. Two-thirty AM. He shook his head slightly, the movement barely visible as he pursed his lips. He was an angel, he may not need as much sleep as humans did, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel the same strain.

She was invading his dreams again, Lucifer thought as he breathed in deeply of the night air, the scents of the city both inviting and repulsive. One scent in particular caught his attention and he turned, his eyes coming to rest on the upright piano framed by the polished glass of the bay window. The instrument was old, but as he turned to stare at the dull wood, he knew that if it could speak, the piano would have endless stories to tell.

His lips turned up in a pale smile, and he moved back to the door of the bar. It was a bit odd to see the door propped open wide when all the lights were shut off, but his curiosity for that was silenced by his desire to feel the keys beneath his fingertips, and the answering vibrations from the corded strings they were connected to. It wasn’t as elegant as his baby grand back at LUX, but it would do. Stepping up to the instrument, he sat down and tapped a few keys to test the tune. The sound was good, crisp and clear, he acknowledged with a silent nod. The nagging feeling that something wasn’t quite right poked at him from the back of his mind, but he silenced the thought as he sat down on the old wooden bench.

Lucifer closed his eyes and breathed in deeply of the wood and oil from the piano, and flexed his fingers as he brought his hands up to rest on the keys. There was no need to look down at the piano, no guessing as to where his hands were, or what keys he was on. He had developed an intimacy with the instrument long ago, and new or old, broken or in pristine shape, he knew it with the familiarity of an old lover.

It was easier not to think, to blank his mind and let the music flow from him as it desired. He pressed down with his right hand first, a single chord that bled into the collection of notes that came after, and as he took in a deep breath to sing, he found himself haunted by the last day he’d spent with Chloe, and the look in her eyes each time her cerulean gaze had met his.

“I’ve tried to leave it all behind me, but I woke up and there they were beside me,” his voice faded as he took in a breath at the pause, his eyes opening only to squeeze closed at the image of Chloe’s face inside his mind. “And I don’t believe it, but I guess it’s true. Some feelings, they can travel, too.”

She had been brave, even when he’d found her standing in her bathroom, the blood from her nose still fresh, still dripping. They had both known what the poison would do to her, they each knew how long she had, and how very slim her chances of survival were, but still she had held it together. All he had wanted to do, the _only_ thing he had wanted to do, was get her to a hospital, make certain that she was safe, but she hadn’t let him do that, either. She had known from the beginning that doing anything but working the case would get her killed, and even that had done her in.

For all her manipulations, it had been his mother who had given him the answer. In a rare moment of empathy, she had tried to soothe him, assure him that the man was in Hell where he belonged, and in that moment . . . Just like the first time, there had been no question, no hesitation, no second guessing. In that moment, he knew he would die for her again, he’d die every time if meant he could save her.

“Oh, there it is again, sitting on my chest. Makes it hard to catch my breath,” he sang, his voice growing more powerful as he found a release for the emotions that refused to leave him alone. “I scramble for the light of change.” He tipped his face up as he refused to admit to the stinging behind his eyes. “You’re always on my mind. You’re always on my mind.”

The first moment Chloe walked into his life had been the first time he’d felt the darkness of loss touch him. The sight of her standing at his piano with her notebook in hand and her hair flowing freely around her shoulders had intrigued him. Finding out that she was immune to his charms only made him want her more, and maybe that was why his father had made her that way. The predictability of getting what he wanted all the time had been broken by the one woman who wasn’t affected by him in the least. Or so it seemed.

“And I never minded being on my own,” he sang as the tempo of the song increased, and he felt the passion in his music rise.

Being alone had been easier, comfortable, almost soothing in its familiarity, and for all that Mazikeen was to him, they had been together too long for him to see her as anything but an extension of himself. At least he had, he thought, until _she_ had stepped into his life. He still didn’t quite know how it had happened. One day, he was Lucifer Morningstar, devil, club owner, sexual deviant, and serial man-whore as Mazikeen had once called him. The next, seemingly without his knowledge or consent, he was standing beside Chloe, working cases with her, and trying desperately to find the fulfilment in the nameless faceless sexual encounters that he once had. The moment she had stepped into his life, everything had changed.

“Then something broke in me and I wanted to go home,” he sang, his voice roughened by emotions he wished he could hide from. “To be where you are. But even closer to you, you seem so very far. And now I’m reaching out to you with every note I sing. And I hope it gets to you on some Pacific wind. Wraps itself around you and whispers in your ear. Tells you that I miss you and I wish that you were here.”

Father help him, he missed Chloe. If he closed his eyes, if he let his mind wander just enough, her scent would waft to him, and so long as he didn’t break the majesty of the moment, she would be right there beside him. For as old as he was, for as much as he’d been through at the hands of his Father, his mother, and so many that came after, it was Chloe who frightened him the most. With one look, she could make his heart race, bring him solace in a moment of grief, or make the earth disappear beneath his feet.

Grief, fear, loneliness, the desire to protect, the will to go slow, the easy grace of sitting in silence and knowing that he didn’t need to speak because she was there with him, because she had seen what he had and she understood that some things couldn’t be spoken, these were things he hadn’t known before Chloe. It was Linda who had seen these things in him before he had held any understanding for them, and it had been Candy who had pointed out that love – _true love_ – could not be silenced by distance, or by will.

“And if I stay home, I don’t know. There’ll be so much that I’ll have to let go,” he sang, his voice aching and quiet as the piano whispered with him.

He was separated from Chloe now, if only by distance, but she was always there with him. His eyes opened only to fall closed once more and, as he breathed in deeply, he swore he could smell the brine of the ocean, hear the crash of the waves against the shore. In his memory, the light filled his vision, crests of white on ribbons of blue, fragments of sunlight reflecting off the ripples of the water’s surface in the purest gold. If he listened just a little closer, he could hear her voice, hear her call out to him over the rushing of the tide.

In his mind, he’d been protecting her, offering her an out and telling her that she was free, but in the end, freedom hadn’t been what she’d wanted. He felt his chest tighten, his voice choking on the words he sang as he felt her lips on his, the delicate touch of her fingers on his cheek, smoothing over the stubble that roughened his cheeks as she traced the line of his jaw. He had never felt more complete than in the moment when she had kissed him, and he knew now, from the whispers of memory that spoke to him, that it had been her soul wrapping around his, her acceptance of him as a part of her that had drawn him so close . . . and broken him just as deeply.

“You’re disappearing all the time. But I still see you in the light. For you the shadows fight.”

His voice cracked as he sang, the memory of Chloe lying on her side in the hospital bed – wires in her hands and down the front of her hospital gown – her life monitored by machines as she slept with her daughter wrapped in her arms. She was always strong, always brave, even to the last moment, she had let everyone believe she was fine, even when the doctor had told him that the pain she was in couldn’t be dulled or abated, the same poison that ravaged her system overpowering any medication they could give her.

His eyes closed as he flinched, a frown creasing his brow as eighteen months of memories tumbled over one other, too fast to hold on to, but far too powerful to ever be ignored. The sight of her framed by the harsh glow of streetlamps and then the softer kinder light of LUX as she walked into his club for the first time, the sound of her voice as she questioned the validity of his name – his claims of immortality. The memory of her falling, her blood splattered on her neck and jaw, the choked whisper as she told him she wasn’t ready to die. His breath caught in his throat as more memories fell past, her voice surrounding him, beckoning to him, calling him forth, and his hands came down on the piano with strength and fervor as he played for her alone, his voice lifting stronger as though she were sitting next to him, as though she could somehow hear him, as though she understood the very emotions that overwhelmed him now.

“And it’s beautiful, but there’s that tug in the sight. I must stop time traveling, you’re always on my mind,” he sang, his voice powerful and quiet, and achingly forlorn.

It all came back to him, the nights she had come to him after seeing her daughter safely to bed and under the care of her mother, or a sitter, or more recently Mazikeen. The times she had simply sat next to him quietly as he’d played the piano, or let him tuck her against his side, under his arm, as they listened to his extensive collection of music. He’d understood her need to not be alone, and the emotions that were too powerful to acknowledge, lest they ate her alive. The few times she’d let him hold her until she fell asleep in his arms, and the mornings she’d wake in his bed, tucked beneath the blankets. Anytime that she had seemed to have unpleasant dreams, he would turn to his piano, playing for her as he sang to her until she was sleeping deeply once more.

The memories haunted him, teasing him with images of a life he wanted, but couldn’t trust. To know that she had been put there by his father, that without the blessing from his brother, Chloe wouldn’t even exist at all, broke him. She had become his gravity, his purpose, and the night he had found out the truth had been the same night he’d almost lost her for good. He’d wanted to be mad at her, but he couldn’t, not in the sight of her mortal peril. He’d directed his anger at his brother, but in truth, the anger he’d felt had only been a mask for his fear.

“You’re always on my mind,” he sang out, calling to her with the song. “You’re always on my mind.”

Even knowing the truth of Chloe’s origins, the thing that upset him the most was how much he wanted to look past it all. He wanted to say that it didn’t matter. He would give anything to just be with her, to believe that she wanted to be with him, but there was another part of him that couldn’t. The part of him that feared her love was nothing more than the programming his father had instilled in her when he’d created her, that fear had driven him to leave her behind.

She didn’t know that her existence was due to his father’s meddling. She didn’t know that she had been put in his path. And therefore, he’d told himself, she didn’t know that what she felt for him wasn’t her choice. He had been certain that once he was gone, she would be set free of the emotions that had been forced upon her.

He couldn’t stay with her knowing that in the end, the love she felt for him was out of her control. He wanted her to love him because she _wanted_ to love him, not because his father had made her do so. Lucifer took in a deep breath, not noticing the droplet of saltwater that escaped his eye, the tear rolling down his cheek until it fell on the lapel of his white button down.

He hadn’t felt pain like this since being rejected by his father and the fall from grace that was accompanied by so much soul-wrenching heartache it had left him numb and confused. But even the torment of Hell’s fire and his father’s betrayal was nothing compared to the agony he felt in his heart now. Leaving Chloe had felt worse than when he’d had Mazikeen cut off his wings. But how could he go back knowing that her feelings weren’t her own? It wasn’t fair to her, and when it came to Chloe, as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t be selfish.

“And I never minded being on my own. Then something broke in me and I wanted to go home. To be where you are,” he sang with fervor and longing.

His eyes stung as he thought of Chloe, her face appearing in his mind, haunted him like a ghost refusing to be forgotten. She was too much a part of him, and there had been times when he wasn’t sure where he ended and she began. Her last words to him, her desire to pick up where they’d left off and explore their deepening relationship brought to him an ache so deep it felt fathomless. He would give anything just to know that what she felt was real.

How he wished to forget everything and be with her now, for her to hear him as he sang to her and know that these words were only meant for her. “And now I’m reaching out with every note I sing. And I hope it gets to you on some Pacific wind, wraps itself around you and whispers in your ear. Tells you that I miss you and I wish that you were here.”

There was a sound in front of him, a soft tap like a glass being set down on top of the instrument he played, but he didn’t open his eyes to look. He had played for so many audiences before, and so many times for Chloe alone, but to open his eyes now would be to break the spell, and he wasn’t ready to return to the cold harshness of reality just yet.

“We all need something watching over us, be it the falcons, the clouds, or the cross,” he sang, the power receding from his voice as the volume softened. “And then the sea swept in and left us all speechless. Speechless.” He took a deep breath as his hands came down with more force on the keys, and he lifted his voice to match, the words breaking from him like the crest of a great white wave in the ocean. “And I never minded being on my own. Then something broke in me and I wanted to go home. To be where you are. But even closer to you, you seem so very far. And now I’m reaching out with every note I sing. And I hope it gets to you on some Pacific wind. Wraps itself around you and whispers in your ear. Tells you that I miss you and I wish that you were here.”

His voice softened as the song came to a close, and he felt his heart ache with the last lingering lines of the music, Chloe’s face forever in his mind.

“Wish that you were here. Wish that you were here,” he sang, each word softer than the last. “Wish that you were here. I wish that you . . . “

His voice broke as the song ended, and he cleared his throat as he played out the last notes on the piano. Opening his eyes, he found a glass of scotch waiting for him on top of the piano, and took it with a silent nod of thanks to whomever had left it for him. Sipping at the amber liquid, he turned on the wooden bench, and found a woman with dark red hair and eyes the color of storm clouds standing against the bar. There was a rag in one hand, and a glass in the other. He watched her polish the low-ball glass before setting it down on the old wooden bar, and met her gaze when she looked up at him.

“Thank you, darling,” he said, lifting the glass in a gesture of gratitude.

“Back at ya,” she said, and nodded to the piano. “Who was she?” she asked, and Lucifer frowned. “Don’t play coy,” she teased him. “A song like that with emotion that powerful behind it, there’s definitely a woman involved somewhere. You don’t really strike me as the “boys only” club type.”

Lucifer chuckled at her words, and nodded. “A bit too new to talk about yet,” he told her, and watched as she nodded slowly, her eyes darkening with understanding.

“Been there before,” she told him. “That piano’s sat silent for almost three years,” she told him. “My dad used to play it, but not so much anymore. You’re welcome to come in any time and play.”

“I may just take you up on that,” he returned with a nod. “Lucifer Morningstar,” he introduced himself.

She nodded with a laugh, and he frowned. “Evelyn Adams,” she introduced herself, tipping her head as her lips twisted with amusement. “Most people call me Eve.”

Lucifer chuckled, his eyes widening with humor. “Of all the gin joints in all the world,” he began.

“And the devil walks into mine,” she finished with a teasing grin. “Not that I don’t welcome the music,” she prefaced with a frown as she met his gaze. “But how did you get in here?”

Lucifer’s brow furrowed with confusion as he studied her. “The door was open,” he said simply, and nodded to the front door across the room from them, half hidden by the bar.

“That was locked,” Eve whispered, her face growing pale as her eyes grew impossibly round, and Lucifer found himself curious about her upset.

“Are you certain?” he asked, turning his head to watch her as she stepped across the floor.

Eve removed the doorstop with her foot, kicking the small lever of rubber lined wood outside of the bar before pulling the doors closed quickly. Lucifer’s frown deepened as he set his drink aside and stood from the piano, his gaze focused on the woman who seemed to be struggling to fit the key she’d taken from her pocket into the lock on the door. He called to her as he moved across the bar, only to watch her rip her key from the lock and flinch back from the door as though it had burned her.

Anyone else may have failed to notice what he had, the movements she had tried to downplay, the frown marring her brow, the barely visible trembling of her hands, and the way her already pale complexion had grown ashen. Chloe had taught him to look closer, to see the hints he normally would have missed, though he had to admit, being the Devil brought with it an entirely different skill in reading people. He knew what fear looked like, and he also knew that the vibrations he could see in the flickering of her soul meant that this was not the first time she had been scared in such a manner.

The fear she felt now was as familiar to her as a bedfellow, and that thought alone angered him. There was no malice in her, no darkness in her soul, and as he stepped closer to her, he could hear Chloe’s voice whispering to him from the back of his mind, demanding he protect her, telling him that she’d been alone with this for far too long already.

“Darling?” he called to her again as he stepped up behind her, reaching out to touch her shoulder.

She turned her head to look at him, her eyes impossibly wide even as she tried to keep a tight rein on her emotions, and he was hard pressed not to growl. Chloe had done the same, he thought, the ghost of the detective’s face inside his mind as she’d stood holding the bloodstained tissue to her nose. He could see her clearly, the abject terror in her eyes, the knowledge of exactly what had befallen her, even as she fought to remain calm, detached, struggled for just one more moment of clarity so that she wouldn’t fall apart.

Lucifer could see the same in Eve, as he watched her take in short shallow breaths, the muscle in her jaw ticking. Each second was a battle against her emotions, the desire to breakdown, the need to scream. Whatever was happening now, whatever _had_ happened, he refused to leave her alone with it any longer, if for no other reason than that he could see Chloe when he looked at her. They were much the same, quiet grace on the outside, but a fathomless storm of emotion buried deep within.

“This is recent, isn’t it?” he asked as he reached out to touch the severed wire of the alarm pad on the wall. “Eve?”

“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” she said simply, and he had to give her credit as he watched her swallow the fear in her eyes, and blink back the brightness in her gaze.

Lucifer’s lips parted as he looked up, his intention to speak silenced as he studied her face. Eve was turned away from him, but he could still make out the upset in her expression, the exhaustion and the edges of fear that darkened her eyes. She was pale, he thought, her skin lighter than her complexion allowed for, and the bruises beneath her eyes – that were only barely hidden by her makeup – bespoke the sleepless nights that plagued her.

He could see Chloe in Eve as he looked at her. The strength deep down that had been born from years of relying on no one but herself, the determination that held her together when nothing else would, and the pride that kept her from backing down when anyone else would have given up long ago. Even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t leave her now. Chloe had been the one to awaken this emotion, this _need_ in him to be better, to _be more_.

Chloe had reminded him of why he was the devil, what purpose he served, and that on the other side of the coin from punishing evil was protecting those who needed protecting. Not all of those who needed help were innocent, but they were far from being damned. He didn’t know what he was waiting for, why he had run so far, or what he was looking for, only that he couldn’t leave Eve to face whatever this was alone. It was because of Chloe that he had left Los Angeles, and it was because of her that he would stay here with Eve, at least for the time being.

“Eve,” he called her name softly, and waited for her to meet his gaze. “This has happened before, hasn’t it?” he asked, and watched her nod.

The muscle in her jaw ticked as she clenched her teeth, her throat moving as she swallowed back the fear brightening her eyes, and he watched as she dipped her head down just the slightest amount. Whether it was an affirmation of his question, or not, he wasn’t certain, but he did know one thing. She was scared. Beyond the words to express it, beyond the voice to ask for help, she had been tormented and pushed back into a corner so dark, so lonely, that she no longer knew there was light just beyond the shadows.

He pressed his lips into a thin line as he heard Chloe’s voice inside his mind again, the barest whisper of fleeting words more powerful than anything he’d ever heard before. _She has been alone long enough. Protect her, fight for her, as you would me._ He released a harsh sigh as he bowed his head, nodding to the voice only he could hear, and felt more unsteadied by the moment by this tiny slip of a woman who reminded her so very much of the one he’d left behind. Whatever it was he was searching for, he thought as he looked up at Eve, maybe he would find it in her.

“Yeah,” Eve said after a long moment, her answer little more than a breathy whisper.

“Shouldn’t you report this?” he asked, and watched her shake her head.

She laughed softly, her unexpected reaction silenced almost as soon as it had started, and he frowned. There was no amusement in her tone. Instead, she sounded tired, scared, and more than a little helpless. She was innocent, he thought, and felt his anger rise. This was the thing Chloe had awakened in him, the angel beneath the devil he’d become, the avenging spirit that demanded retribution for what Eve had been put through.

“Who would I report it to?” she asked him, and he tilted his head in confusion. “The guy who’s doing this is careful, and smart. He never leaves anything behind, and he always keeps his face hidden from the cameras.”

“How many times has this happened?” he asked her, and saw the cautious light in her eyes.

She wanted help with this, he could see that, but he could also see how afraid she was to allow for hope that anything would change. He followed her when she tilted her head, and stepped back toward the bar. He frowned at the way her hand shook when she reached out to lift the drawbridge counter up to step through to the other side, and he lowered it back into place once he’d followed her behind the bar. Her face was just a little too pale, he thought as he narrowed his eyes, and watched her pull the edges of her long-sleeved shirt down over her hands as though she were cold.

He watched her move about, taking the coffee pot to the sink to rinse the carafe before filling it with water. Her shoulders moved as she took in a deep breath and released it slowly, holding her arm as steady as she could while she poured the water into the tank of the coffeemaker. She was keeping herself busy, he realized, his brows quirking together in a frown before smoothing out as he studied her. How many times had his detective done the same thing, just searching for some semblance of control in a situation that left her so very helpless. He looked down at the table in front of him as he felt the way her soul seemed to be pulling in on itself, shielding her from any added heartache or upset.

“Yes,” Eve said quietly, and he looked up at her with a frown. “The thing with the door, and the alarm,” she clarified. “It’s happened before.”

“How many times?” he asked her again, and watched her sit down slowly.

“Just in the past three weeks?” she asked, and his eyes widened slightly. “Five times, not counting tonight. I’ve had the locks changed, I’ve had the security system repaired, and even replaced with a better unit. I’ve put in hidden cameras of my own to try and get better angles on his face to prove what’s happening, but none of it helps,” she told him tiredly.

“You know who’s doing this,” he said with a frown, studying her through narrowed eyes, his tone turning the statement into a question.

Eve nodded silently. “But knowing, and proving are two different things. Without photo or video evidence, it’s just my word against his.”

“The police?” he asked, and felt his fingers tingle with the desire to simply call Chloe, or Dan for help.

“They can’t do anything unless he’s caught on camera, but without a clear shot of his face, they can’t identify him,” she said, and Lucifer felt his temperature rise with the knowledge that she’d been dealing with this alone. “And I can’t file a restraining order until after he’s physically hurt me to prove that he’s a danger to me,” she said, and he watched her shake her head as she turned her face away from him.

“They’ll only act _after_ you’ve been hurt?” he asked her incredulously, and watched her nod. “What the bloody hell good are they then?” he asked.

He was ready to tell her what he thought of that when she turned to meet his gaze. The look in her eyes silenced him, and he frowned as he fell silent.

“You should go,” she told him softly. “Now, while you still can.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked her, and watched as the fear returned to her gaze before she closed her eyes and rubbed her lips together.

“If they think you’re in the way,” she told him softly, opening her eyes to meet his gaze. “Then they’ll go after you, too.”

“Let them come,” he said, darkness coloring the edges of his words. “Like you said earlier, darling,” he reminded her with an arch of his brow. “I am the devil, and in this fight, I stand on your side.”

“My side?” she asked, and he wondered if she thought him crazy for his proclamation.

“I punish evil,” he told her simply. “And whomever is doing this certainly fits that description.” He glanced around the small kitchen they were in, the equipment and cooking areas just large enough for sandwiches and appetizers. “Are you normally here this late?” he asked curiously, and turned his gaze back to her.

She nodded quietly to a set of stairs across from them. “I have a room upstairs. It’s not much, but it suits my needs. And there’s a couch in the office I use sometimes.”

“You _live_ here?” he asked her, his anger rising once more when she nodded. “And the man who’s doing this,” he said. “Does he know that?”

She nodded quietly, and he watched as her bravado crumbled for a moment, just long enough for him to see the true depth of her fear. He realized then that what was happening went deeper than someone trying to allow her business to be damaged. Whoever was doing this was baiting a trap for the worst this city had to offer, and Eve was the bait. Whoever this man was, and Lucifer fully intended on discovering his identity, he meant for Eve to be hurt, to be violated, to perhaps even be killed.

Lucifer pushed his anger back as he watched Eve rise from her chair to retrieve two coffee mugs, her movements slow as she poured them each a drink. He couldn’t help the grin that curled his lips as he looked down at the dark blue cup in front of him, and ran the pad of his thumb over the muted gold metallic plate pressed into the ceramic. A skull surrounded by snakes, with a cap on top and a crown up above.

“Death Wish coffee,” he read aloud, a curious lilt in his voice, and smiled when she grinned.

“It’s what you’re drinking,” she told him. “I love these mugs,” she said, and he noticed that hers was similar to his, though the coloring seemed just slightly different. “Each one is hand made, and only offered a limited time per year. I ordered four of them last year,” she said with a soft chuckle, before she sobered, her gentle amusement replaced by worry. “Lucifer, I –“

“Forget it, darling,” he interrupted her. “I’m not leaving you to deal with this alone. And besides that, _you_ have a piano.”

She chuckled softly as she bit her lip. “I suppose I do,” she agreed, and nodded gratefully. “Do you like scotch?” she asked him, the tone of her question making it sound like an afterthought.

“I’m quite a fan of it,” Lucifer answered, and watched her smile as she stood.

He followed her with his eyes as she stepped back into the office near them. She disappeared from view, and he frowned curiously as he heard the sound of a drawer being opened and closed. Eve returned to him a few minutes later with a bottle of scotch and a single glass.

“Joe,” she offered the name as she reclaimed her seat at the small table. “He’s this sweet, sassy old man who comes around every now and again,” she told him. “He gave me this bottle one night, said that it was just supposed to be for me, not the bar,” she said as she poured Lucifer two fingers of the amber liquid. “I don’t really drink much anymore, but it shouldn’t go to waste. Joe told me he brought this back from a trip to Scotland. Said it was a gift from someone he’d met there. Joe, of course, prefers beer and tequila and rum. He’s not much for scotch.”

Lucifer blinked as he sipped at the scotch, his eyes opening wide, before falling closed. The liquor was quite possibly the smoothest scotch he’d ever had, and the burn that accompanied the drink was more of a slow calming warmth. Setting his glass down, he reached for the bottle, and his eyes widened.

“Eve, this is a sixty-thousand-dollar bottle. This brewery’s not even in existence anymore, and he just gave it to you?” he asked her, and she nodded.

“Scotch used to be my drink of choice, but alcohol doesn’t quite agree with me anymore,” she told him with a shrug. “I’ll keep it out for you back here,” she offered, and he knew she was truly asking if he would be coming by again.

“I’d appreciate that,” he nodded, and finished the liquor she’d poured for him. “It’s almost four,” he said as he looked up at the clock on the far wall behind the woman seated across from him. “Will you be alright here?” he asked, and watched her smile as she nodded.

“Don’t worry about me, Lucifer,” she told him with a grin. “I’m a tough old broad.”

She stood from the table when he did, and he glanced back at her when she followed him to the door. Leaving her here alone felt wrong, dangerous, but he couldn’t do anything to change that now. The anger and hurt he’d felt care of his mother, now finally had a focus. There was a hunt he could engage in here, an evil that needed punishing, and there was no cop to play angel on his shoulder. He could let the devil inside him free to seek punishment for this innocent soul, and as he turned away from the bar, he knew he would be coming back.

 

 

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

Sunlight filtered in through the window, the indirect angle of the dusty glass and the cover of the tree outside casting broken bits of golden light across the floor. Sooty lashes fluttered down to brush against milk white skin, the woman taking in a deep breath as she pushed the unruly dark red locks out of her face. She blinked as she studied the patterns of light, pale peach lips turning up in a slow smile, as her grey-blue eyes lightened, the darkness of storm clouds giving way to the softer warmth of a summer sky. She couldn’t remember the last time she had laid in bed – or in this case the couch in her office – and simply relaxed, letting the moments pass her by without worrying about what needed to be done.

It was early yet, not yet ten, and she wouldn’t be opening the bar for several more hours. Where the other establishments around her opened as early as eleven, she couldn’t afford to, the lack of patrons making it too expensive to run the lights, or sound system when there was no one around to enjoy it. When the sun turned in the sky, growing from the bright gold of daylight, to the warm almost-orange of the late afternoon, she would open the doors., but until then, the time was her own to enjoy.

She smiled as she blinked slowly, lifting her arms above her head in a lazy stretch as she rolled gracefully to her feet. There would be time to lie back later, but for now, she had things to do, the first of which entailed cleaning the bar. Stepping out of the office, she made her way to the back wall of the kitchen and lifted the old metal bucket from the floor, the aged brush inside knocking against the walls to create a dulled reverberation.

Eve shook her head as she rolled her eyes, and set the bucket down in the deep basin of the sink as she lifted the brush onto the counter. The noise, however brief, had been welcomed in the quiet, but what she really wanted was to hear Lucifer on the piano again. His voice – the smooth tenor when he crooned to his lost love and the rasping growl when his passion rose higher – comforted her, breathed new life into her. And even if she never saw him again, she would forever be thankful for the impromptu performance he’d graced her with the night before.

Adding enough bleach and mop soap to the steaming water, Eve watched as the frothing liquid created a thick foam on the surface, and waited for it to reach three inches from the top of the bucket before she stopped the flow. She may not have the proper supplies she once did, but what she did have was pride, and love. This place was her home, it was a part of her family, her heritage, and she would be damned before she let it fall into ruin.

 

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

  


Lucifer stilled as he stepped into the bar, the light of the setting sun warm against his back, his gaze fixed on the man at the counter. He felt his hackles rise as he looked to Eve, the expression on her face frightened and angry. He may have only met her last night, but she had been kind to him, when by all rights, she could have thrown him from her establishment. Her eyes darted to him, a warning in her gaze as she glanced down, and his brow quirked with a frown of confusion as he looked down to the man’s waist. He knew what the shape beneath his jacket meant, and quickly understood the situation.

Bottles were missing from the shelves, he noted as he closed the distance between himself and the man threatening Eve. He glanced down when he came to stand beside the bar, his temper growing hotter when he saw the broken glass and liquid on the floor. Lucifer turned his eyes toward the man at the sound of a soft tapping, and looked down to see him bouncing a baseball tied into a netted rope. The covering around the ball would make it easy enough to recall the makeshift weapon once it was cast, and he realized quickly what had happened.

“Darling,” he called to Eve, paying no attention to the man next to him as he watched her. “Your best scotch,” he requested as he took a seat at the bar, knowing she’d left the bottle in the back room the night before.

“It’s in the back,” she said softly, and he heard the faintest catch in her voice.

“Oh, that’s quite alright, darling,” he soothed her, and nodded toward the back. “I’ll wait.” He met her gaze when she looked at him with barely hidden fear, and offered her a comforting smile. “Off you pop,” he encouraged, and watched her slip into the room behind the bar.

“Who the Hell do you think you are?” the man demanded, his tone unfriendly to say the least. “I wasn’t done with her yet,” he said, and Lucifer turned to meet the man’s gaze.

“You most certainly are done with her, and this establishment,” Lucifer told him calmly. “Get out.”

“Oh, I get it,” the man sneered. “You’re the rich boyfriend she’s sluttin’ it up for.”

Lucifer didn’t say anything as he stood, his lips turning up in a deadly grin. “Oh, I’m much _much worse_ than that,” he said, and let his eyes flare crimson just long enough for the man to see.

“What the hell?” he shouted as Lucifer advanced on the retreating man.

“What the Hell _indeed_ ,” Lucifer purred as he neared the man, and reached out to drag him close by the front of his shirt. “If I see you in this place, or near her again,” he warned the man, only a few inches between their faces. “I will have _my fun_ with you.”

Lucifer released the man a few seconds later, tossing him back as though he were throwing something away. He watched as the man stared at him with wide eyes, before stumbling over his own feet and falling to the floor, only to scramble to his feet and run. His gaze flicked to the back corner of the bar when another man stood and moved toward them, his pace slow and careless as though he owned the place. The other man didn’t say anything as he stepped past Lucifer, but the message in his eyes had been clear. He didn’t consider this encounter to be the end of anything. Lucifer may have frightened the muscle away, but the other man was clearly the leader, and he wouldn’t be put off so easily.

He followed the men to the door, and locked it behind them when they left. Flipping the open sign over, he stepped back across the quiet room, and lifted the drawbridge counter before stepping through to the back. Lucifer watched as Eve lifted the bottle of scotch he’d asked her for with shaking hands, and stepped up quietly behind her. He’d seen this reaction from Chloe before, he thought as he gently took the bottle from her hands, and set it aside. Brave in the face of danger, only to fall apart after it was all said and done.

“They’re gone,” he promised Eve quietly as he wrapped her in his arms, and felt her hands fist in the back of his suit as she clung to him.

She was trembling almost violently, and it angered him. He may not have known her for very long, but he had recognized the way she had tried to warn him away. This wasn’t the first time those men had visited her, and this wasn’t the first time they had become violent with her, either. And he was willing to bet, Lucifer thought with a dark glower, that they were the same ones responsible for her door being open in the middle of the night. He held her quietly as she composed herself, and waited patiently as she calmed.

“Who were they?” he asked her when she stepped back from the embrace with a nod of thanks.

“Brent Carter and his goon of a brother, Patrick,” she told him quietly, and he gently placed his hand on top of hers when she reached for the broom.

“The mess can wait,” he told her, and nodded to the small round table. “Sit down,” he said, and stepped over to the counter to pour her a coffee. “This isn’t the first time,” he told her as he set the mug in front of her and watched her shake her head.

“They’ve been trying to buy the bar for the past ten years,” she told him with a sigh, and nodded when he held up the bottle of scotch. “I said no, and my dad said no before me,” she said, her voice unsteady, and looked up to meet his gaze when he sat next to her. “This bar has been here since D.C. was city. It’s over three hundred years old, and until six months ago, it was a protected historical landmark.”

“What happened six months ago?” he asked her with a frown.

“Brent realized that even if he bought the place, he wouldn’t be able to tear it down like he wanted, so he paid off a guy on the city council to rescind the status. I tried to fight it, but it would take more money and time than I have,” she said, and he watched her look up as she shook her head. “It’s just me here, Lucifer. The last guy I had on staff, Brent had his brother rough up. If they can’t get me to sell, then they’ll force me out of business.”

“We’ll see about that,” he told her. “I’ve a few tricks up my sleeve,” he told her with a grin, only to sober as he studied her. “They are the same ones who’ve been stopping by to open your doors at night?” he asked with quiet authority, doing his best to push back his anger, knowing that she’d done nothing to deserve it.

“Yeah,” she said, her eyes wide, and Lucifer knew she was still spooked by what had happened. “Brent’s the one who does it.” She laughed softly, the sound one of disbelief edged in fear. “Patrick doesn’t care who sees him, but Brent’s smart enough to stay out of sight and wear gloves.”

“How long have you been dealing with this on your own?” he asked her

“Two, almost three years,” she said, her voice trembling almost as much as her hands were. “Ever-ever since I had to put my dad in the care facility. Aggressive early-onset Alzheimer’s,” she said at his frown of confusion. “He doesn’t even know who I am anymore.”

“You don’t have any other staff, do you?” he asked, and watched as she shook her head, her trembling increasing. “They scared them off, didn’t they?” he asked her.

“They’ve broken into people’s cars, even their homes,” she told him, her voice shaking slightly. “Mike, my last bartender who quit,” she said. “Patrick broke three of his fingers, and nearly broke his jaw. He was a mess, and in the hospital for almost a week. Mike told me that Brent offered to pay all the medical expenses as long as he promised not to come back. I had another bartender, Toby. He couldn’t be scared off, and he could fight like a demon, but he got deployed. I haven’t seen him in more than a year.”

“And your patrons?” Lucifer asked as he watched her. “They did much the same to them?” he asked, and she nodded.

“I-I’m sorry,” Eve stammered as she shook her head, and Lucifer sighed softly when she began to cry.

“When was the last time you felt safe?” he asked her, watching as she covered her mouth with her hands and shook her head.

“I don’t know,” she said a few moments later, trying desperately to control her emotions. “I can’t remember a time when they weren’t bothering us in some manner.”

Lucifer frowned as he studied her. “Eve,” he called to her, and waited for her to meet his gaze. “How old are you?” he asked, and watched her rub her forehead tiredly.

“Twenty-six,” she answered, and his eyes widened.

“Twenty-six?” he repeated, and watched her nod. “Ten years,” he repeated, reviewing their earlier conversation. “They’ve been tormenting you since you were sixteen?” he asked.

“Fifteen,” she corrected softly, and he frowned. “I just turned twenty-six a few days ago.”

He watched her sit quietly, her hands fisted as she tried valiantly to control their trembling. She closed her eyes, the muscle in her jaw ticking as she clenched her teeth. Lucifer rose silently from his seat, and moved around the table to stand next to her chair. He was quiet as he touched her shoulder, watching her startle as she stared up at him with wide eyes, and he nodded for her to stand. He tucked her under his arm, holding her against his side, and let her lean against him as he led her to the open door of her office. He pushed the door open wider as they stepped inside, and frowned at the spilled drink on the desk and the papers strewn on the floor. She must have been in the middle of paperwork when the men came in, he surmised as he took in the mess.

The first broken sob sounded from her as he sat down with her on the couch, and he closed his eyes as he felt them burn with his rage. A decade, he thought as he held her close, probably more than that. She and her father had been terrorized in one way, or another by someone who wanted her family’s bar, and only for the sole purpose of tearing it down. He understood her upset, he thought, as he remembered when LUX had nearly been ripped away from him. Chloe had been the one to save his home then, and he would repay her now by saving Eve’s.

“Eve?” he called to her quietly when she began to calm.

“Yeah?” she responded, sniffling slightly as she remained curled against his chest.

“Have you always lived in the apartment above the bar?” he asked, and looked down when she tilted her head up to meet his gaze.

“No,” she answered with some confusion. “It’s not really an apartment. It’s more of an old store room that I converted – sort of,” she said, and he frowned. “There’s a bed and dresser up there, but it’s not really meant to be lived in. It’s more of an oversized closet.”

“And before moving in?” he asked curiously.

“An apartment a few miles from here,” she told him, and he could tell she was growing tired. “It was actually pretty nice.”

“Why did you move?” he asked, though he had a feeling he already knew the answer.

“Brent,” she said softly. “He tried to pressure me into selling the bar when my dad first started showing signs of Alzheimer’s,” she told him. “When I said no, he got mad. I guess he figured that if he couldn’t get me to sell the bar one way, then he’d do so another. At first, he tried to bully my landlord into kicking me out, and when that didn’t work, he had his brother rough him up. They put him in the hospital, and after that . . . It’s easier this way, I guess,” she said with a shrug. “I don’t have to worry about driving here anymore. I had to sell my car earlier this year to cover the taxes on the bar,” she said, her voice growing softer with every word.

“Hush now,” he soothed her, and held her as she fell asleep in his arms. “Let the Devil take care of things for a while,” he told the sleeping woman, his eyes glowing crimson as he smiled dangerously. “I will punish those beasts as they rightly deserve.”

Lucifer moved slowly as he stood from the couch a few moments later, and eased Eve back to lie on the couch. The throw pillow was threadbare, but he tucked it under her head all the same. It would still be plush to some extent, even if it wasn’t entirely comfortable. Slipping out of his suit jacket, he covered her with it, a pouting smile playing at the edges of his lips when she pulled the coat closer around herself. Leaving her to sleep, he stepped out of the small office and pulled the door closed behind him.

Taking in a deep breath, Lucifer reached for the broom standing against the wall, and moved out into the bar behind the counter. It didn’t take him long to lift the rubber mats and clean the broken glass from the floor. He returned the broom to the corner spot it had been tucked into before, but couldn’t find a mop. It was odd, he thought as he moved around the back room, opening doors and looking in corners. There was no mop, and no rolling mop bucket to be found as there would be at LUX, or any other business for that matter.

Lucifer stilled as he turned, his brow furrowed as he looked back to the object on the floor that had caught his attention. There was an old metal bucket, barely five gallons at best, tucked into the corner and inside of it was nothing more than a scrub brush. It was old, the wood was stained and cracked, the bristles bent out and worn. To clean the bar, she would have to be on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor, something he was certain the men who’d threatened her knew, and it angered him.

_“No, really, why do you do it?”_

Lucifer blinked as the sound of his own voice echoed to him from his memories, and frowned as he looked down. He could feel the material of Chloe’s couch under his fingertips, the plushness of the furniture supporting him as he sat turned to the side in order to face Chloe. She had been close enough to touch that night, and he swore he could smell her next to him in the bar as the memory played out inside his mind.

_“Do what?” Chloe had asked with some amusement._

_“This,” he had said. “Being a cop. You can’t tell me you’re just following in your father’s footsteps. There’s something more to it,” he said. “I can feel it.”_

_“It’s not some great secret,” Chloe had told him with a shake of her head. “I just . . . Protecting people who can’t protect themselves, helping them fight back against those who would do everything in their power to destroy them. I don’t know, I like it. I like knowing that I can help the victims, or their families, fight back. There are bad people in this world, too many of them who’ve gotten away with what they’ve done for too long. I don’t let them get away with it.”_

Lucifer released a heavy sigh as the memory dissipated like so much smoke, and closed his eyes as he tipped his head back. He could feel her there beside him now, hear her telling him not to let Eve fight alone. He had crossed the country to leave her behind, and instead found that his connection to her was stronger now than it had been before. Without Chloe here, he was able to look back on his memories of her and see things he had missed before. He whispered her name as he returned to the back room.

It didn’t take him long to cover the spilled liquor with baking soda, leaving the powder to absorb the liquid as he took stock of her alcohol. Most bars had backup bottles behind the open ones on the shelves, but there were none that he found. Stepping into the back room, he looked in the cupboard, and frowned at the bottles on the shelves. There was only one bottle of each liquor, and he wondered how long it had been since this bar had thrived, and not simply had the occasional customer that wandered in.

The only food he saw were bags of tortilla chips and pretzels, but each large bag was labeled with a hand-written sticker that read ‘for patrons’. He had yet to find anything that appeared to be hers. It was possible she kept food upstairs in the makeshift apartment she’d told him about, but he highly doubted it, given the condition of everything else. She was an innocent soul, sentenced to her own private Hell on earth, for no other reason than that she wouldn’t cower and give in to the men who wanted to buy, and destroy, the bar she called home. And it was high time that she was reminded what it felt like to have someone stand by her side.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Lucifer sings is "Wish That You Were Here" by Florence and the Machine


	4. Chapter 3 "Set Backs"

AN: Lucifer and all recognizable characters belong to Jerry Bruckheimer and FOX television. Set post 'A _Good Day to Die_ '. . (Written during the Spring break before the airing of ' _Candy Morningstar_ ') While some scenes may seem similar to scenes in, or after, _Candy Morningstar_ , this story is not meant to follow the TV’s aired storyline, and is of my own creation.

 

Summary: Unable to accept the guilt of the pain she had caused her son, she turned her rage on the one person she believed had caused it all. Charlotte may have promised Lucifer that she wouldn't directly kill Chloe, but she never said anything about not influencing someone else to go after the detective. If she couldn't kill the woman with her own two hands, just maybe she could make Chloe do it herself.

 

 

 

 

Ashes of Eden 

Chapter 3

**_“Set Backs”_ **

by WhisperingWolf

 

  
 

Chloe closed her eyes as she stepped forward under the hot spray of the shower, letting the water fall over her face to wash away the traces of tears left behind. It had been forty-eight hours since she’d left the hospital, thirty-six hours since she’d woken to find herself in her bedroom inside the apartment she shared with Mazikeen and not in Lucifer’s penthouse. Part of her had wanted to believe it was a dream, that she had simply had a nightmare, and that Lucifer hadn’t left. She had almost believed it, too, until Mazikeen had followed her into LUX and up to Lucifer’s penthouse. His _empty_ penthouse.

She wanted to be angry, she thought, as she stepped out from under the spray and grabbed blindly for the bottle of face wash she kept on the tub wall. But anger had been the last emotion she’d demonstrated. No, Chloe thought with a snort as she squeezed the exfoliating wash into her palm and snapped the lid shut before setting the bottle back down. Had she screamed? No. Had she raged? No. Had she cursed Lucifer? No.

Lifting her hands to rub the cleansing scrub into her skin, she sighed. What she had done, in her opinion, was far more humiliating.

_“Chloe,” Mazikeen called to her as she stepped away from the alcove by the elevator and walked further into the penthouse. “He’s always been selfish. He’s . . . “_

_“Maze,” Chloe interrupted her angered words. “Could you . . . I need a few minutes alone.”_

_She didn’t turn to look at her friend, but heard the woman’s harsh sigh behind her. Whatever emotions she had to release over Lucifer’s absence were unwarranted in Mazikeen’s opinion, but as much as she loved the woman she called friend, Chloe knew that Mazikeen really had very little understanding for emotion. It made her wonder what the woman’s relationship with her own mother was like._

_Chloe closed her eyes as she listened to the elevator ding, the doors sliding open, before she heard the sound of Mazikeen’s retreating footsteps, and the doors sliding closed once more. It was then that she turned to look behind her, verifying that Mazikeen had left, before she turned back to stare at the cloth-covered furniture in front of her._

_“Why did you leave?” she whispered, her eyes stinging as her vision blurred. “I don’t understand,” she choked out as she fell to her knees, hot tears rolling down her cheeks._

Chloe stepped forward, turning her face up into the shower spray as she rinsed the wash from her skin before she stepped back and wiped the water from her eyes. Reaching for the shampoo, she fisted her hand around it tight enough that her knuckles turned white. She still wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting on the floor of the penthouse, crying silently, before Mazikeen had come back up to check on her – and for a woman who had no understanding of emotion – she’d been surprisingly supportive.

Mazikeen had even called Linda over last night, Chloe recalled as she rinsed the shampoo from her hair and reached for the conditioner. The therapist was still sleeping on the couch where she’d collapsed last night after more than her fair share of tequila. Fisting her hand when she felt the telltale sting of tears, Chloe growled and reached for her body wash and razor. Crying was the last thing she wanted to do, and she hated herself for not being able to control her emotions better than she was.

“He wasn’t yours,” she whispered fiercely to herself as she finished shaving, and rinsed herself and the razor off in the spray of the shower behind her. “There’s no reason to cry.”

But he had been, her mind railed at her, and she flinched at the memory of their kiss. There hadn’t been another one, no matter how intense the dreams, or how much she had wished for a repeat of the experience on the beach, they had only shared the one kiss. The moment had been fleeting, yet it still had the power to rock her to her very core. Sniffling as she wiped away a tear, Chloe reached out for the shower controls to shut off the water before stepping out of the shower.

Frowning as an all too familiar scent wafted up to her as she wrapped the towel around herself, and tucked the end down over the top to secure it between her breasts, she closed her eyes as she breathed in deeply, and looked down at herself when the scent became stronger.

“That’s not fair,” Chloe whispered, shaking her head as she realized what the scent was.

It had been a joke between them, one she’d forgotten about until that moment when she’d stepped from the shower. She had been entirely too distracted that day by Lucifer, by his scent, and he had laughed at her, teasing her that he would have a wallflower made with the scent in it. And he had, she realized as she stared at the dark amber glass teardrop connected to the wallflower holder plugged into the outlet beside the mirror. It was still full, he couldn’t have put it in too long ago, and she stilled as her eyes stung, her lips trembling.

“The day before I was poisoned,” she whispered as her eyes closed slowly, two fat tears spilling onto her cheeks. “Damnit,” she growled as she slapped her hand against the mirror, wiping away the fog that covered it, and reached for her hairbrush.

This wasn’t her, Chloe thought with a wince as she yanked down on her hairbrush viciously, the bristles snapping and tearing the wet strands of her hair. She wasn’t the whimpering girlfriend. She wasn’t someone who sat around and cried for the lover who had run away. Her brows furrowed as her jaw moved, her teeth scraping back and forth against each other as she fought against the rising tide of her emotions, as she glowered at herself in the mirror.

How many times, in their first year of marriage alone, had Dan been gone for days at a time? She hadn’t been this upset then, and even she had heard the rumors. Malcom was said to have had mistresses in each part of town, little more than hookers he protected from arrest that paid him with sex. No one had ever been able to catch him on it, but Dan had been his partner back then, back before everything that had happened. She knew – _knew_ – that rumor or not, Dan couldn’t have been innocent in all of it, but she had never been as upset back then as she was now over Lucifer.

_We don’t even have a real relationship,_ she told herself as she scraped her brush through her hair and dragged the still wet length of it into a ponytail.

_Face it, Decker, you never really loved him. You may not want to say it out loud, but it’s true,_ her conscious pricked at her. _What you and Dan had was safe. What you and Lucifer have is . . ._

“ . . . Passion . . . ” Chloe finished the thought out loud, and sighed heavily as she secured the cloth covered elastic around her hair.

Passion and love were dangerous things, that was what her mother had always told her. Maybe it was why her father’s death had broken her, but not her mother, she thought with a pensive frown. Her mother had been distant, and quiet, even sullen at times, but she’d never cried, never been angry. Chloe shook her head as she dropped her brush to the counter next to the sink and stepped out of the bathroom.

“Two days,” she said aloud, and swallowed hard as she dropped the towel from around herself to the foot of her bed, and stepped into her closet.

_Two days or less and I’ve always been able to move on,_ she thought, her eyes narrowed and lips pursed as she pulled her grey and black sports bra down over her chest, before reaching inside to adjust herself.

_Oh, please,_ her conscious scoffed, and Chloe rolled her eyes in response to the sound of her own thoughts. _It was never about moving on before. There was nothing to move on from. You never_ once _let yourself get close to someone._

“I never _let_ Lucifer get close to me,” she responded out loud, pulling on a pair of panties before tugging on her running shorts as she argued with herself.

_You never had to let him get close,_ her conscious insisted. _Say it, Chloe. Say the one thing that scares you the most. Say it._

“. . . I . . .” She took in a deep breath as she shook her head, her eyes widening as tears stung behind her eyes. “I . . . I felt . . . whole . . . with Lucifer.”

Her lips pulled apart in an aching pained grimace as she fell to sit on the side of her bed, and bowed her head as she lifted her hand to cradle her brow. Lucifer had filled those empty spaces in her heart, in her mind, in her very _soul_. Places she hadn’t even known were empty were suddenly filled, and it was because of him. She knew if he was in a room, even if she couldn’t see him, because she could _feel_ him there. She had been that attuned to him almost from the beginning.

“No,” Chloe snarled as she sniffed back her tears, and fought back her emotions. “Damnit, no,” she cursed as she tugged on a pair of socks and her running shoes.

She had never once been the kind of girl to get broken up over a relationship, and she wasn’t about to start now. There had never been any doubt as to what kind of a man Lucifer was. He was charming, he truly did seem to care about her, he was . . . he was a womanizer, she reminded herself harshly. The investigation into the poisoning should have reminded her well enough of that. How many women had she interrogated? How many men? And all of them – Every. Single. One. – had shared Lucifer’s bed.

_And what pisses you off most is how you compared yourself to every single one of those women and found yourself to be sorely lacking,_ her conscious reminded her, and Chloe all but growled as she reached for her arm band, her phone, and her earbuds.

She didn’t care that it had been less than forty-eight hours since she’d been released from the hospital, and narrowed her eyes when her conscience reminded her that she hadn’t been released, so much as she had left whether the nurses liked it or not. Moving quietly as she headed for the front door, she arched her brow at the empty couch before turning to look at the open door of Mazikeen’s bedroom and the tangle of limbs she could see in the bed. At some point, Linda must have decided to bunk down with her roommate.

She didn’t pay attention to what she was tapping on as she adjusted the earbuds, and scowled at her phone when the dulcet tones of Heart filled her ears. Everything in her music list was nothing but nineties power ballads, and where she had once loved her song lists, she now hated it. She was angry, and she wanted something that matched that, but there was nothing. Everything was happy or bittersweet, full of love and longing, and the sight of the song titles enraged her.

There was no thought behind the move as she threw the phone behind her, rejecting what it offered, the device clattering to the wood floor as she ripped open the front door. She thought she’d closed it, but didn’t care enough to look as she clenched her jaw and ran down the corridor to the front of the apartment complex. Every step was faster than the last, every second her rage grew stronger, her heart beat faster as her mind spun with thoughts she only wanted to make go away.

_Why is it so hard to admit that you love him?_ _Why can’t you just say what he really is to you?_

Chloe growled as she increased her pace, ignoring the questions that poked at her from her own mind, questions she didn’t want to answer, but had no power to silence. What Lucifer really meant to her, she thought as she turned left and kept running, her head pounding as her heart beat an unsteady rhythm inside her chest. He didn’t _mean_ _anything_ to her. He was just a fascination, nothing more.

_Oh, really?_ Her conscience scoffed in return. _A fascination? And I suppose that all those cases he assisted you on, all those times he was there to stand up for you, to stand beside you, to_ protect _you, those meant nothing, either?_

Her breath came in sharp pants as she pushed herself to run faster, confused by the feeling of being cold instead of the normal heat she gained from the exercise. She tried to ignore the voice inside her own head, the voice that wouldn’t let her build back up the walls that Lucifer had torn down without even trying. The lazy grin he would grace her with whenever he spotted her in a crowd, or at the station, flashed through her mind, his eyes – so startling dark brown that they looked black – held her attention, and she groaned as she shook her head to dispel the image of him.

If she admitted that he meant something to her, then that would mean admitting that she was vulnerable, and _that_ was something she simply couldn’t do.

_But you did, you know?_ Her conscience called to her. _You did admit that he makes you feel vulnerable._

_Yeah, I did,_ she snapped in return. _And he freaked out about it._

She heard the laughter, and gritted her teeth at the desire to slam her head against something – anything – that would silence her conscience.

_Go ahead and try, I’ll still be here. I am you, after all. And so what if he freaked out? You were the only woman he’s ever known who’s seen him as something more –_ anything _more – than a sex doll. You treat him as a person. You show him care and concern over his well-being, his emotions, his mental state. Don’t you get it, Chloe? You_ scare _him. And Lucifer’s not one to admit to fear._

I _scare him?_ Chloe scoffed and rolled her eyes as she darted down another sidewalk, ignoring the looks of the people milling about. _Me? Scare Lucifer? Now I know you’re insane. Which makes me insane. And why the hell am I arguing with myself?!_

_The better question,_ her conscience laughed at her. _Would be how is it that you’re_ losing _the argument?_

_Shut up,_ she growled, and narrowed her eyes when the voice laughed harder in response. _Seriously?_ She snarled, her eyes darting back and forth as she ran down the street. _Why are people staring at me?_

_Probably because you’ve got another nose bleed,_ her mind answered back, and Chloe blinked. _And, if Lucifer really means nothing to you, then answer me this: Why did you run to LUX?_

_What? I – I didn’t_ , Chloe protested as she stilled, nearly tripping herself as she stared up at the building in front of her. _Son of a bitch,_ she cursed as she stared at the skyscraper that kept drifting in and out of focus before her eyes.

“What?” she whispered as darkness swam on the edges of her vision, seconds before the world around her went black.

 

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

  


Cold dry air stung her nose, making her grimace, as the unwelcome sensation that she was spinning like a top clouded her mind until her stomach lurched violently in response. She thought she groaned, tried to call out to the deep voice that sounded softly next to her, as she turned onto her side with difficulty, and pulled her knees to her chest as she wrapped her arms over her abdomen. Pieces of conversations, words she didn’t understand – couldn’t make out – filtered through the haze that clouded her mind, and she whimpered as the calm voice next to her grew louder, stronger before falling quiet, and moments later the other voices around her disappeared.

She clenched her teeth so tightly her jaw ached as she squeezed her eyes closed, fighting to keep out the light and sounds that drew her closer to the waking world, to the place where pain existed in sharp relief. She panted, struggling with effort it took to keep down the bile tingling at the back of her throat, and whimpered at the smooth baritone of the voice that spoke softly to her in an effort to soothe her upset. She was too cold, too nauseous, to sleep, Chloe thought, refusing to open her eyes and give up the blessed darkness, as tears stung her eyes, slipping between her lashes to roll quietly over the bridge of her nose.

Warm hands touched her head, smoothing back her hair and brushing against her cheek to wipe away her tears before she felt something being removed from her face, and seconds later the frigid brittle air was no longer invading her nostrils. Her eyes fluttered without opening, the light invading in deep reds through the thin membrane of her eyelids was more tolerable without the addition of the oxygen tube, as her stomach calmed, though the vertigo dominating her senses refused to dissipate. Her lips parted as she took in air to speak, only to choke on it, and cough as she curled tighter in on herself.

Chloe thought she called out Lucifer’s name, her lips trembling as the cold air of the room overwhelmed her, violent shivers shaking her frame as strong arms slipped around and beneath her, lifting her from the bed. She was almost asleep again when she felt a hard chest beneath her cheek, a steady heartbeat soothing her, as she pressed closer, desperate for the warmth that was offered her, and felt the conscious world slip away once more.

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

  


Amenadiel reached out for the thin blanket covering the hospital bed and brought it closer, wrapping it around the woman cradled in his lap, and tucked the end of it under her chin before he wrapped his arm around her once more. He looked up as the door opened, watched as Linda slipped into the room, and closed the door quietly behind her.

“I told them to leave,” she said in reference to Dan and Mazikeen as she stepped across the room, her eyes meeting his briefly before turning down to stare at the woman in his arms. “The last thing Chloe needs is to wake up to those two fighting,” she told him, and shook her head as her gaze hardened. “It’s bad enough that she’s back in the hospital, they don’t need to make it worse by fighting about where she was or why she was out alone when she collapsed.”

“Who found her?” Amenadiel asked with a frown. It had been his job to protect Chloe, and he had failed.

“Rocky,” Linda replied, and he nodded in recognition at the name of one of the lead bouncers at his brother’s club. “She was out running,” she recounted what the nurse had told her as she sat on the side of the bed across from him. “I didn’t even know she’d left, but to hear Rocky describe it,” she said, and released a breathy snort as her lips twisted to the side. “He said she was running like demons were chasing her.”

Amenadiel chuckled quietly, his lips twitching with subdued amusement. Even though he’d seen the real thing happen in centuries past, he could appreciate the metaphoric description. He turned his eyes down to Chloe when she moved slightly, curling closer as she tucked her head beneath his chin, her hand fisting in the folds of the blanket. The exercise had been more than her body could handle, and he closed his eyes as he fought to rein in his temper.

There was no doubt in his mind that she had been running from her own emotions, he’d seen Lucifer do the same, except when his brother acted out it tended to be far flashier and sexually deviant. Chloe, however, tended to push herself to the brink of exhaustion, he’d seen her do it time and again, only this time it was worse. She was still recovering from the effects of the poison – from _surviving_ the poison. The doctor had told him that her heart and lungs were at their weakest right now, and would be for a while as she recovered. Pushing herself as she had had only exacerbated the damage, he thought, as the moment he’d found her in the hospital rushed back to him.

_“Sir, I can’t let you back there,” the nurse said, trying to stop him from entering the curtained off area where Chloe was, and Amenadiel felt his anger rise when he caught sight of her still form lying on the gurney._

_“I’m her brother in law,” he blurted, uncertain where the lie had come from, surprised at how easily it had come, and watched the nurse nod as she motioned for the doctor tending to Chloe to come to them._

_“You’re family?” the doctor asked as he came to stand in front of Amenadiel, and he barely noticed when the nurse left his side._

_“Yes,” Amenadiel answered, fisting his hand in irritation. “What happened?” he growled, trying desperately to keep a lid on his rapidly escalating temper._

_“Detective Decker was brought in a few minutes ago,” the doctor told him, and glanced down at the tablet in his hands. “I don’t know all the details yet as to how she was found, but what I do know is that she was out running, and from the sounds of it, she covered a pretty fair distance before she collapsed. The poison that ravaged her body a few days ago did a lot of damage before it was stopped,” the doctor told him as he flipped through the electronic record. “It’s going to take a while for her body to recover from that, and she was expressly told she was only allowed_ light _activity for the next two weeks. Running as she did, whether she experienced a burst of high energy before she left, or not, only undid what little repair her body was able to do.”_

_“What does that mean for her?” Amenadiel asked, he was an angel, yes, but he was by no means a doctor._

_“It means that the road ahead of her just got a lot harder. We don’t know how her body’s going to react over the next several hours, but we need to keep her overnight for observation. We were able to get the nosebleed stopped, but she’s still unconscious and unresponsive. I’m waiting for test results from the blood and urine samples we took when she was brought in, but we really won’t know more until she wakes up.”_

Amenadiel sighed as the memory faded. That had been almost six hours ago, he thought as he looked down at Chloe. He soothed her when she whimpered in her sleep, his gaze hardening when he heard the broken whisper of his brother’s name on her lips. He didn’t know why Lucifer had left her, he didn’t know when his wayward brother would return, but when he did, Amenadiel thought, he owed his little brother a good beat down. None of what happened to Chloe had been her own fault, and in some manner, he knew Lucifer knew that, but still his brother had abandoned her when she’d needed him the most.

“I need to check her vitals.” Amenadiel blinked as he looked up at the young woman standing next to his chair, before scanning the room. “She left,” the nurse said kindly, in reference to Linda. “Before she left, she told us not to fight you on staying with Chloe. She said you may be the best thing for her right now.”

The smile that twisted his lips was fleeting, and he nodded as he loosened his hold just enough to allow the nurse access to Chloe’s arm. He watched quietly as the nurse untucked Chloe’s arm from the blanket, and wrapped the inflatable cuff around Chloe’s wrist. He stared almost curiously as the cuff inflated on its own, and shushed Chloe gently when the pressure of the instrument disturbed her sleep.

“Has she woken at all?” the nurse asked as he soothed Chloe, the detective settling into a deep sleep once more.

“Not fully,” he replied, and met her gaze. “She’s stirred a few times. She seemed . . . cold and nauseous, but she never truly woke.”

The woman nodded as she removed the device from Chloe’s wrist, and entered notes into the tablet she carried. “That’s not unexpected,” she advised, and set the tablet down on the bed as she reached to the basket she’d brought in for a tourniquet. “I need to draw just a bit of her blood,” she explained as she wrapped the rubbed tubing around Chloe’s upper arm before reaching for the needle and syringe. “The stress she put her body under will leave her feeling colder as her body repairs the added damage done to her heart.” She met Amenadiel’s gaze with a pointed frown. “This time when you take her home, be sure to remind Detective Decker that _light_ activity means being a couch potato for the next week or so. No hiking, jogging, running, lifting weights, or other exercising until she’s been cleared by her doctor. That includes yoga.”

Amenadiel offered her a short nod and a friendly smile as she removed the needle from Chloe’s arm, and untied the tourniquet. Packing her things away, the nurse lifted the basket and tablet from the bed before leaving the room. There was a part of him that wanted to be irritated with Chloe, but he couldn’t be, he thought as he looked down on the woman in his arms and tucked her arm beneath the blanket once more. He was irritated at the situation, at the cause for her upset, at the motivation behind the run she had taken that could have cost her dearly, but he wasn’t actually upset with her. Not when he knew damn well that it was Lucifer that caused her upset, and that it could only be Lucifer who would truly be able to comfort her.

He felt Mazikeen’s presence before the door even opened, and pursed his lips as he kept his gaze focused on the woman in his arms. “Where’s Dan?” he asked without looking up to meet her gaze.

“Back at the precinct,” she answered with a sigh of irritation. “He called a bit ago to say an inquest is being opened. Said it was normal when an officer is shot,” she said, and Amenadiel’s eyes widened as he met her gaze furiously.

“She wasn’t shot,” he snapped, keeping his voice low.

“That’s what I said,” she replied with a tilt of her head. “I guess some big wig got a bug up their ass about her being poisoned,” she said, and shrugged. “He said something about medical bills versus insurance coverage and prior care needs.”

He leveled an incredulous scowl at her as the furrow between his brows deepened. “Wh . . . what?” he growled as more thunderclouds rolled into his expression, his dark eyes taking on a dangerous glint.

“I don’t know,” Mazikeen dismissed as she stepped closer. “I didn’t understand half of it,” she confessed, “but from what I could make sense of, whatever is happening has Dan plenty pissed off.”

“What the hell do they think?” he hissed. “That she poisoned herself?”

“I don’t know,” she repeated, her eyes wide as she shook her head, her hands raised at her sides, palms upturned. “Dan hasn’t told Trixie anything of what happened, either. The spawn doesn’t know that Chloe’s back in the hospital and both Dan and Chloe’s mom said not to tell her.” She shrugged when Amenadiel growled low. “I was going to bring her by when I picked her up from school, but Chloe’s mom got there first.”

Amenadiel gritted his teeth as he felt his irritation rise higher. Perhaps she wouldn’t be here that long, but Trixie had been Chloe’s source of comfort and calm during her ordeal. When Lucifer wasn’t with her, her daughter had been, and Dan – for all his intentions – hadn’t been able to comfort Chloe. No, Amenadiel thought as he cast his mind back to that fateful day earlier that week. Chloe had been the one to comfort Dan, and while she had also stayed strong for her daughter, it had been Trixie’s presence that brought the detective strength and solace.

“She needs her daughter,” Amenadiel protested as he looked down at the woman in his care. “They need each other.”

“You take it up with them,” Mazikeen told him with a dark glower. “They seem to believe Trixie would cause her too much stress. And considering what I overheard Penny saying to Trixie, they’re not going to let her come back home for at least two weeks. She kept saying that Chloe needed to rest, and Trixie didn’t understand.”

“Well, you talked to her,” he said as he looked up at the demon, and Mazikeen shook her head.

“Penny wouldn’t let me close to her, but that woman never really has liked me. She’s still convinced that I ‘corrupted her daughter and turned her into a lesbian’,” Mazikeen mocked Penny’s voice with a roll of her eyes. “Chloe’s as straight-laced and incorruptible as they come.”

Amenadiel watched as Mazikeen stepped closer, moved to sit on the side of the hospital bed facing him, and reached out to touch Chloe’s hair.

“They’re keeping Chloe overnight,” he told her, and watched her nod silently without looking up from the sleeping detective.

“I’m going to see what I can find out,” she said after a few moments, and stood from the bed. “Humans just love to tell me things,” she said with an unkind smile.

He knew better than to say anything, and nodded quietly as he watched her leave. A few seconds later he released a breath of amusement, the small gesture spiraling into a low chuckle as he returned his attention down to the woman in his arms. There was no other human in existence, or even in the course of human history who could say they had God’s most trusted angel, the Devil himself, and Hell’s most feared demon as their protectors, but Chloe could. And the most amusing part of it all, he thought, was the that the detective was ignorant of it all.

 

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

 

There was no subtlety or finesse to her actions, she hadn’t been waiting next to his car in any parking lot or followed him into any bar. She was past the point of caring about seducing the information out of him, and instead had turned her focus into a desire to see just how much she could gain from him before turning to such baser methods as drawing his blood with one of her knives. Mazikeen’s eyes closed, her jaw moving forward and back as she released a slow breath, calming herself down as she fought for a steadiness she didn’t feel.

Of all the humans she had already talked to, all the people she had already questioned and seduced or scared into telling her what she wanted to know, each and every one of them had pointed to this man – Jacob Weller. There was nothing to tell her that his position meant anything at all, aside from the investigation he had somehow started. Her eyes narrowed as she heard the tell-tale scrape of carved metal against a lock, knowing that he would soon be entering his apartment. Whether he was alone or with anyone else, she really didn’t care.

The fool, she thought as she watched him enter the home without turning on any of the lights and listened to the clattering sound as he dropped his keys into the little dish on the table just inside the door. She narrowed her eyes as she watched him move in the shadows, the clear lines of his suit jacket as he opened it, the sound of rustling fabric as he let the clothing slide down his arms. The amber glow from the streetlight outside caught the edge of his cufflink, the shimmer from the bit of metal glinting in the darkness.

“That’s a bit careless, don’t you think?” she whispered as she sauntered up behind him, watching him frown as he spun to face her.

His human eyes were too dull to see in the darkness to the degree that she could, the richness of the detail she could make out bringing a smile to her face as his soul pulsed with anticipation and fear. She clicked her tongue when he reached for the light, catching the fabric of the front of his button-down shirt in her hands as she yanked him away from the wall mere fractions of a second before he could touch the switch. Buttons popped in rapid successions, bits of plastic skittering across the floor as she tore open his shirt before throwing him back to fall down on his couch.

He, of course, would believe this to be a seduction, a game of cat and mouse, of pleasure and release, and for now, that was fine by her. When the truth of it all came to light, he’d be too far gone, too deep in her thrall, to fight back. She straddled his hips as she jumped on top of him, the leather clothing she wore stretching and creaking as it accommodated her movements. She released a low rumbling chuckle when he groaned, grasped his hair in her hand to yank his head back and delighted in his hiss of pain.

“Did Matty send you?” he asked her, groaning as he laughed under her assault. “If he did, tell him thank you for me.”

Mazikeen purred as she wrenched his head back and to the side, snarling as she bit down on his throat. He jumped at the feel of her teeth, grasping her hips as if to hold on. She laughed when he tried to tug her away, offering up a sound of amusement when he slapped his hand against her ass.

“God damn you’re aggressive,” he said, shuddering beneath her in appreciation. “No way, Matty sent you. He only seems to know the whores who can do the light stuff.”

“I’m not a whore,” Mazikeen purred, leaning up over him and letting him see her true face in the fleeting light of a passing car. “I’m a demon.”

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

**  
**

Amenadiel looked up at Linda when her shadow fell over him, nodding his thanks at the heavy grey quilt she held out to him. Tossing aside the paltry hospital blanket – the open weave white cotton doing little at all to keep Chloe warm – he wrapped the thick quilt around her instead. She stirred slightly in his arms, whimpering as she moved in her sleep, catching the edge of the quilt in her hand to tuck the blanket beneath her chin as she curled closer to him.

He really wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting there holding her, having moved from the chair to the hospital bed a few hours ago, in order to make himself and Chloe more comfortable. The sun had still been high in the sky when he’d settled back on the bed, the adjustable frame tilted up into a reclined sitting position that allowed him to hold her easily. Part of him had been afraid that he’d fall asleep if he’d laid down flat with her, believing that when he woke he’d find her gone. He knew the fear was foolish and, in some manner, even childish, but given the events of the past ten days, he really hadn’t been able to convince himself that it was unfounded, either.

“Mazikeen asked me to drop by,” Linda said and Amenadiel blinked as he looked up at her, his brows drawing together in a deep frown as he studied her expression. “She told me to tell you that she’s getting close and that you need to answer your damn phone.”

He chuckled as he nodded, able to almost feel Mazikeen’s irritation. “Battery on it died a while ago,” he answered with a shrug.

“Has she woken at all?” Linda asked as she sat down in the chair by the bed.

“A few hours ago,” he replied with a nod. “She threw up a few times. One of the nurses came in to take her down for an MRI.”

Linda narrowed her eyes as she stared at him from behind the clear lens of her glasses. “Why do I think that’s code for you got all protective and angry and shooed them away?” she asked, her brow arched as she stared at him.

Amenadiel narrowed his eyes as he pursed his lips. “I didn’t get protective and angry,” he denied, his lips twitching in amusement. “But I did follow them down to radiology.”

“Mmhmm,” she agreed, a knowing smile curling her lips.

A soft moan drew their attention, the soft-spoken conversation falling silent as Chloe began to stir. She breathed in deeply, a quiet whimper coming from her, followed by a sleep-heavy sigh as she turned her face into Amenadiel’s shoulder. His dark eyes softened as he tipped his head down to watch as she hid a yawn behind the folds of the blanket, her blue eyes fluttering open slowly. Her brows drew together slowly as she blinked in confusion, turning her head to look out at the room around her before turning back to curl against him once more.

“Hey Chloe,” he greeted her softly, his deep voice rumbling as he looked down to meet her tired gaze. “Are you hungry?” he asked, watching her wince as she quickly shook her head. “Still nauseous?” he asked, his lips twitching to the side when she nodded. “Thirsty?”

“Iced tea?” she requested, her words mumbled but still able to be heard.

“I’ll see what I can find,” Linda whispered to him, touching his arm as she rose from the chair.

“Get a straw, if you can,” he asked, watching as the therapist nodded.

He turned his attention back to Chloe when Linda left the room, releasing a soft exhalation when he found the detective to be asleep once more. The nurses had told him that she would sleep for a while yet, her body needing the rest in order to recover, and every single one of them who had stopped in to check on her had each made a comment expressing their gratitude that they didn’t have to ply her with sedatives in order to get her to sleep. From what he had been able to gather, Chloe was not an easy sleeper, especially not when in the hospital, those who’d treated her in the past having made allusions to the need for mild sedatives just to get her to rest.

She was sleeping now, though, he thought, his pride in being the one to help her sleep tempered by concern. From everything he’d heard the nurses say, from all the things he had heard Mazikeen and even Dan say – when the man wasn’t strutting around like some kind of jealous lover – Chloe wasn’t much for sleeping at all. A few hours here or there, nothing that anyone would consider truly restful, and yet he recalled having heard Lucifer say that Chloe fell asleep easily with him – occasionally even snoring when she was tired enough.

“She’s asleep again?” Linda asked, and he looked up to find the woman standing next to the bed, a bottle of Pure Leaf black tea in her hand, a paper-wrapped straw caught in her finger.

Amenadiel nodded. “She was only awake for a few minutes.” He frowned as he moved the quilt, bringing it up higher over Chloe’s shoulder and tucking it beneath her chin. “It doesn’t make any sense,” he said, his brow furrowed as he looked up at Linda. “From everything Dan and Maze and the nurses who’ve treated her here before said, Chloe doesn’t sleep much unless given something to help her sleep. And yet, Lucifer used to say that she’d fall asleep pretty easily with him, and she doesn’t seem to have a problem sleeping at all now.”

“Because you’re holding her,” Linda told him as she took her seat in the chair by the bed, setting the bottle of tea and the straw on the rolling table. “I’m willing to bet that Lucifer was holding her in some manner, too, or just close enough that his presence affected her. It’s not really that unusual for women in high-stress fields like law enforcement or military services. Even EMTs and firefighters to some extent.”

Amenadiel studied Linda through narrowed eyes. “What isn’t that unusual?”

“From what you’ve said,” she told him, nodding to the woman in his arms. “Chloe only sleeps when she feels safe and considering her job and everything that’s happened to her in the past year alone, it would seem that the people who’ve made her feel safe are you and Lucifer.”

Amenadiel considered that in silence, his brows drawn together in a thoughtful frown as he looked down at Chloe. He’d never even once thought about that, had he? That a woman like Chloe, who always seemed so very sure of herself, could feel unsafe in any manner. He knew she’d been shot before. Hell, it would never be possible for him to forget that the first truly selfless act he could recall Lucifer ever having taken was to save Chloe’s life. He knew she’d been in the line of fire on several occasions, and though her job was dangerous enough in and of itself, he still blamed Lucifer for a good deal of the danger she’d been in.

“She always seems to just brush everything off,” he thought aloud, and looked up at the sound of Linda’s soft hum.

“She’s a strong woman, and she can handle herself well, but the one thing the strongest people I’ve met all have in common,” she said as she held his gaze. “They’re very good at compartmentalizing their emotions and boxing away their traumatic memories until they can deal with them at a later time. They just push away the anxiety, swallow the fear, and only let themselves feel it when they’re alone. For some, doing that results in having major trust issues – learning to hide yourself like that means that you struggle to actually let anyone in to see the real you,” she elaborated when he frowned. “For others, it means that everything they try to hide from or control their reactions to comes back to them in the form of nightmares and panic attacks, flashes of memories that they’d give anything to forget.”

She was silent for a moment, her brow furrowed ever so slightly as her gaze remained fixed on Chloe. She closed her eyes as she bowed her head, nodded to herself as if answering some unspoken question before looking up to meet his gaze once more.

“It also means that finding someone who makes them feel safe – someone who makes _her_ feel safe,” she amended as she nodded at Chloe, “is a very rare thing. Lucifer made her feel safe, he was – by her own admission to me once – the first person she felt that she could truly open up to. And now she’s lost that, lost him.”

“What does that mean for her?” Amenadiel asked, frowning at the way Linda pressed her lips together, the frown marring her brow speaking of her uncertainty.

“That has yet to be seen,” she offered after a moment. “But from patients I’ve worked with in the past who’ve gained that level of trust and security in someone else only to have it ripped away . . . nothing good can come of this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been awhile since I updated, and I send a very sincere thank you to all of you who have commented and read and reread. I want to also thank my friend, and beta, CelestialSara, for her enthusiasm and prodding. It is true that I have several other projects going at the moment and updates will be infrequent, at best, but Sara has been my guiding light in times of doubt. Thank you, my friend.


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